Seldom do we hear that ‘Boredom is the mother of all inventions’, but in this particular case, that is exactly what happened with a group of youngsters. When four 22-year old enterprising brains started getting bored of sitting in one class studying the same subject, they chanced upon a novel idea for a business. Meet the team at Jack of all Threads (JoaT) – Yash Vardhan Kanoi, Pratibha Nair, Akash Datta and Apoorvaa Agarwal. Jack of all Threads, a city-based start-up is India’s first crowd-funded platform for customised t-shirts.
The ideaThe idea of the crowdfunding platform came in nearly two years ago when JoaT was trying to help social causes. “We wanted to print t-shirts for animal welfare, but didn’t know how many people would want it. We were afraid to hold stock ourselves,” says Yash. “We initially thought of simply trying this via Facebook photos. Many months and much experience later, we are helping others deal with the same setback with a slightly more sophisticated solution.” Joat makes it easy for absolutely anybody to make money by designing and selling t-shirts online at 100 per cent free of cost using the power of crowdfunding technology. “Raisers design their t-shirts in minutes using JoaT’s online designer and set their own selling price. JoaT handles the production, distribution, payment collection and customer support and transfers the profits to the raiser. The best part? The raiser pays nothing – all costs are transferred to the buyers.” Yash feels that JoaT has essentially democratised e-commerce. “By taking care of every point of friction and opening e-commerce to the crowd and not just to the retailers, JoaT is accessible to anyone with internet in India. It has brought the power of the ‘crowd’ to e-commerce.” JoaT has garnered interest from a few angel investors who help them with their funding.
How it worksStep 1: You design your t-shirt in minutes using our online design tool.
Step 2: JoaT gives you a base price per t-shirt based on your design.
This includes the production and shipping costs and our small administration fee. You decide your profit margin and selling price and when your campaign ends.
Step 3: Your campaign goes live on our platform. You market your campaign to your friends, community and anyone interested via Facebook. Buyers purchase your t-shirt via the platform. The more you sell the lower your base price and higher your profit margin. Once your campaign ends, JoaT transfers the profits online to you and produce and ships the t-shirts out to all the buyers.
Who is using it?JoaT is used by several non-profit organisations who want to raise funds by spreading awareness for various social cause. People with absolutely no experience or resources are making thousands every month selling t-shirts through JoaT. “We train them in online marketing by spending just a few minutes a day. NGOs are also loving the ease of raising funds and spreading awareness. Instead of simply donating, here the supporters get a great t-shirt, which NGOs say increases the likelihood of support tremendously. And unlike otherwise, the NGO doesn’t need to pay to buy the tees themselves and worry about overstocking, distribution, payment collection, even design. JoaT takes care of everything, and it’s free!” NGOs like WWF, CRY, The Akshaya Patra Foundation, Make a Difference have signed with Jack of all Threads. Bands, cafes and Facebook groups are also raising with JoaT for official merchandise owing to the fact that is highly convenient. Bands like Parikrama, The Lost Symbol and Sifar are signing up with JoaT. Cafes like Hungry Hogs and Coffee Culture, communities like I Love Malleshwaram, AIESEC and events like Airtel India Marathon and Nokia V India Fest are also raising money with JoaT.
“We started with regular bulk t-shirt printing for colleges,” says Yash.
“Very soon after we took a social spin and allowed all buyers to donate an extra few rupees per t-shirt to a cause. JoaT would match their donation, the total amount would go to the cause and the buyers would get a special symbol of recognition printed on their t-shirt corner. We’ve since tweaked our model repeatedly to arrive at where we are now - helping individuals and communities make money.”
Tapping the potential“We see great potential in crowd-funded commerce. India’s at a fantastic stage for it. Our current results are already far greater than we’d hoped for,” says Yash.
JoaT, he feels is constantly improving their technology to make the platform more accessible and very profitable for individuals and communities.
