Dear Beta-Tester,
After five months of testing, on Monday we finally opened up Spoonflower so that anyone who wants to can register, upload a design, and order custom-printed fabric.
We are writing to thank you for signing up for the beta version of our site, but more importantly to thank you for your support and help as we have tried to turn a fabulous idea -- affordable, on-demand fabric -- into a real, functioning company.
It's not that we don't still have a lot to learn (note that the site still says beta), but once you have over 10,000 people signed up as testers you may as well open it up to everyone.
Kim's Great Idea
Not long ago, Spoonflower didn't exist. I was an Internet marketing consultant spending days arguing the merits of one business idea vs. another. My wife, Kim, was a crafter with a passion for sewing. One night she turned to me and said, "You know what would be really cool? If I could print my own fabric." The more we thought about her idea, the better it seemed.
Sew Mama Sew
In February I put together an online survey and Kim asked the good folks at the Sew Mama Sew blog if they would post it to their readers. They did, and the idea grew from blog to blog and crafter to crafter. Lots and lots of people helped spread the word, but it really started with that single blog post. The response to that survey persuaded my business partner Gart and I to keep going.
Kitchen Table Business
Kim and I spent the summer fulfilling the first few hundred fabric orders from our kitchen table, with plenty of help from Gart and his wife Anne, from friends, and with a tremendous amount of encouragement from the online crafting community. The creativity we saw each week astonished us, and from our home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, we shipped fabric all over the world.
An Old Sock Mill
In August, Gart and I founded Spoonflower HQ in a stylish old building in Mebane, North Carolina. With a good deal of help and advice, we now have all the machinery we need to print a lot of fabric. We've spent the last two months or so ironing out the rough edges and now we're ready for anything. Or so we hope.
The Best Customers in the World
Whether it is reporting bugs in our site, publishing photos of craft projects in the Spoonflower Flickr pool, commenting on the Spoonflower blog, or writing a nice note to remind me about something I forgot to do, Spoonflower really does have the best customers in the world.
On behalf of Kim, Gart, Anne, and myself, thank you for helping make Kim's idea into a real business and thank you for giving us all such a cool job. We're really just getting started and have a lot still to do, but we wouldn't have made it this far without you.
Please always feel free to drop us a line or call if you have questions. You can reach us through our contact page or by calling us at 1 919 321 2949.
Best,
Stephen Fraser
|
If you haven't ordered fabric yet from Spoonflower, upload a file and get started any time.
You are receiving this email because you signed up to participate in the beta version of Spoonflower, a custom fabric printing service. If you would prefer not to hear from us, you can unsubscribe any time.
If you are wondering how to set up your own design, you might try starting with our Frequently Asked Questions
|
