4 ms·

Show HN: Hashtagtee.me – A weekend attempt at passive income

47 points by china 13y ago

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
emilioolivares 13y ago
Nice, who are you sourcing your t-shirts from? Good luck.
- mbijon 13y ago
  Yes, and that's your biggest risk. Tried a niche, online T shop with a friend years ago (before Spreadshirt existed). We worked with a local T shop at first but their minimums were a drag. A big T shop in a lower income town about 100 miles from us (we were in Santa Monica) agreed to waive minimums and do drop shipping. Problem ended up being quality we or the shop couldn't consistently control. It was great for weeks, then bad for a batch, then good again. Returns and re-shipping costs due to low quality finally killed us.
  - dmak 13y ago
    What was the biggest take away from that experience?
adamnemecek 13y ago
You could also use the Twitter API to get hashtags trending in the user's location and create shirts based on those hashtags.
- china 13y ago
  To be in version 2.0 for suuuure
  - digitalboss 13y ago
    CNN did this several years ago with headlines. http://37signals.com/svn/posts/985-custom-cnn-t-shirts http://37signals.com/svn/posts/985-custom-cnn-t-shirts http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/cnn-promo-turns-headlines-t-shirts-95587 http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/cnn-promo-tu... http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/business/media/09cnn.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/business/media/09cnn.html?...
adaline 13y ago
I have made a t-shirt generator (http://sonarcore.com http://sonarcore.com) in a similar attempt at a passive income. It took me much longer than a weekend to build but anyway. I'm very anxious to wait to see how your project goes :)
dl_terp 13y ago
I think the trick is going to be either: 1) finding hashtags with enough people desiring them so that you can order in bulk OR 2) finding a production method that is cheap/efficient enough that you can print 1 or 2 shirts without breaking the bank I wonder if you could do something like threadless did, where people vote for the "best hashtag" with their wallet, saying they would buy one if you produced the lot. Not bad for a weekend project though! Props to you!
- china 13y ago
  Thanks!
Killswitch 13y ago
Automate that shit son. Use Shirts.io and grab trending tags from Twitter, and display them, even tweet about them when a new trending tag hits, also allow users to enter their own hashtags... I'd buy one right now if I could input my own hashtag.
- china 13y ago
  who is to say I'm not using shirts.io already ;) and that "add a hashtag" feature is in the works...
  - Killswitch 13y ago
    Atta boy. Now chop chop so I can order a shirt for an event on the 23rd.
    - china 13y ago
      What're ya lookin for?
      - Killswitch 13y ago
        #FFFFFF Just kidding, not 100% sure yet.
        ryen 13y ago
        >#FFFFFF Would #FFFFFF on a white tee just be a blank tee? ;)
        Killswitch 13y ago
        Not sure, I just know the display shirts are black, haha.
- antonius 13y ago
  I agree. If a custom hashtag feature existed I'd be purchasing one ASAP.
cjrd 13y ago
I'd consider springing for a hashtagtee if the price was circa $10.
joebo 13y ago
I don't understand hash tags and I don't understand why someone would want them on a shirt. Is this best understood by immersing myself in the twitter culture? I don't get it from the outside. The main place I see hash tags is where networks will display them with a TV show. Aside from that, I don't understand how people come up with them and how they are used other than searching and linking? For example, #SalmonCat (a TV shirt on the home page) apparently refers to some tv show called Sam and Cat? Googling that reveals it's the 17th episode that aired today. If I loved the show enough, would I go buy a shirt with the hash tag on it? http://hashtagtee.me/products/salmoncat-shirt http://hashtagtee.me/products/salmoncat-shirt I am admittedly not one of the 230 million+ twitter users.
- vxNsr 13y ago
  If you've used facebook recently you'd know they've also added hashtags, their main purpose (and the way twitter started using them originally) is to connect your posts to a topic. I've also seen it used (and have used it myself) as a way to kinda add a punchline to a post that didn't have or need one.
jrosenberg99 13y ago
With all due respect to your work, somehow I never understood the "t-shirt" startup idea. We live in a world where there are many problems to tackle in health, science, government and politics, yet I've seen dozens of attempts at these t-shirt startups. I do not mean to discredit your work, that being said.
- Falling3 13y ago
  Probably because the OP was able to create this in a weekend or less in hopes of generating some passive income. That really doesn't compare to any problem (trivial or otherwise) in the areas you mentioned.
- increment_i 13y ago
  It was explicitly stated that it was a weekend attempt at generating passive income. OP wasn't exactly setting out to free Tibet here...
- frankdenbow 13y ago
  Its a $17 billion dollar market that has many ways of being served better. The OP did say that it was just a weekend project and we all have to start somewhere. Elon Musk's first company was an internet city guide.
- QuasiAlon 13y ago
  You can pretty much use this rationale with 95% of the internet businesses out there. Why try to produce a film via kickstarter when you can go to Africa and volunteer... etc.
ruswick 13y ago
From the About page: We use the highest quality shirts and deliver them with the most affordable pricing. Does this imply that the $25 price is the lowest possible point at which the OP can attain reasonable margins? If so, they really need to reevaluate their infrastructure, as $25 for a text-only tee shirt is very, very high, and the OP is likely being ripped off by their suppliers. Given the price, I have doubts about the willingness of potential customers to purchase shirts of this sort. The precedent for comparable services like Teespring and even for individual shirt vendors seems to be $10 to $20, substantially lower than what the OP is charging. Other than the pricing, I'm not entirely sure whether hashtags would make suitable shirts. Hashtags tend to be highly ephemeral, and most cease to be relevant within a few days. Most people keep shirts for years, and thus would be likely be wearing these shirts for a period far longer than the life of the hashtag. It's a novel idea, but at the end of the day it's trying to turn what are highly transient cultural artifacts into something permanent.
- china 13y ago
  The problem with teespring and the likes are that they have an MOQ that most people don't want to commit to. As for hashtags and being irrelevant in a few minutes/days/weeks, I'd argue that a shirt that says "#GoBlue" will always be somewhat relevant. But hey, we'll see! More a fun project than anything else.
  - frankdenbow 13y ago
    The MOQ is a drag but it serves a purpose: you can use a higher quality printing process (screen printing) which has most of the cost in the setup. Personally have not found too many Direct to Garment (what most one off shirts are printed with) printers that I was happy with in terms of consistent quality. Trust me, it would make my life so much easier if I could print quality one offs. You may be better off doing each hashtag as a short term campaign, maybe Teespring has an API? Love your idea though! Think you should consider different color shirts: when we did black shirts in our tshirt subscription, people complained that they already have too many black shirts in their closet and wanted something different.
DaemonXI 13y ago
$25 for a shirt I could print at Zazzle for less? No thanks.
zachschau 13y ago
not bad for a weekend project!
- china 13y ago
  and its only Saturday!
- progx 13y ago
  Seems that some people have longer weekends than others ;-)
avalaunch 13y ago
What is your marketing strategy - other than the initial launch on Hacker News? I'm curious how other people market their passive income apps. I'm doubly curious because I've got my own t-shirt passive income app that I've been working on for a couple weekends now. EDIT: I just realized you are (wisely) tweeting out each shirt to the appropriate hashtag. So the marketing is essentially baked in. Nice.
- china 13y ago
  Twitter twitter twitter :)
aaronbrethorst 13y ago
#toomanychoices have a shirt of the day, pick it from the Twitter trending list, lather, rinse, repeat. Holy crap, I like this simplification so much I might go build it myself...
- china 13y ago
  dig the idea
  - Zaheer 13y ago
    Have you ever the MobStub Facebook ads? They choose one item a day people really like/need (iPhone chargers for cheap) and feature it daily. Do something similar for your biz. Love the concept btw - saying this as a person experienced in the hashtag space (check my profile).
brianbreslin 13y ago
If your volume price on 1 off shirts is $12.99-14 on shirts.io, I honestly think you'd get 5-10x the volume at $20 flat price vs 25, 20 is closer to impulse buy range than $25.
- frankdenbow 13y ago
  This is good advice. We saw the same thing with our subscription and one off tshirt sales.
  - QuasiAlon 13y ago
    can you share some numbers? did you gauge demand price elasticity ?
- QuasiAlon 13y ago
  If he's going to do $20 he might as well do $19.90 :)
forlorn 13y ago
Sorry for the offtopic, but it's such a pleasure to see #Pacers on the 1st position.
nosph 13y ago
If you make your blog a place where we can be updated about how your business are going in real time, it ll retain and grow your traffic and build a great comunnity around Good reference: http://groovehq.com/blog http://groovehq.com/blog
tommis 13y ago
Google "order a tshirt with your text", first hit that came up was for example this - http://www.spreadshirt.com/design-your-own-t-shirt-C59 http://www.spreadshirt.com/design-your-own-t-shirt-C59 Type in what ever #tag you want, $13.90 I bet with little more googlefu there's some cheaper places out there.
danmaz74 13y ago
Holy crap, I thought somebody had submitted my Hashtagify.me without telling me :)
QuasiAlon 13y ago
Very nice. Good luck! I would hide the hello world post from your blog :) Also, not sure what message it sends out when you write it runs from your basement.. perhaps it will hurt conversion.

47 points by china 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

emilioolivares 13y ago

Nice, who are you sourcing your t-shirts from? Good luck.

mbijon 13y ago
Yes, and that's your biggest risk. Tried a niche, online T shop with a friend years ago (before Spreadshirt existed). We worked with a local T shop at first but their minimums were a drag. A big T shop in a lower income town about 100 miles from us (we were in Santa Monica) agreed to waive minimums and do drop shipping. Problem ended up being quality we or the shop couldn't consistently control. It was great for weeks, then bad for a batch, then good again. Returns and re-shipping costs due to low quality finally killed us.
- dmak 13y ago
  What was the biggest take away from that experience?

adamnemecek 13y ago

You could also use the Twitter API to get hashtags trending in the user's location and create shirts based on those hashtags.

china 13y ago
To be in version 2.0 for suuuure
- digitalboss 13y ago
  CNN did this several years ago with headlines. http://37signals.com/svn/posts/985-custom-cnn-t-shirts http://37signals.com/svn/posts/985-custom-cnn-t-shirts http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/cnn-promo-turns-headlines-t-shirts-95587 http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/cnn-promo-tu... http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/business/media/09cnn.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/business/media/09cnn.html?...

adaline 13y ago

I have made a t-shirt generator (http://sonarcore.com http://sonarcore.com) in a similar attempt at a passive income. It took me much longer than a weekend to build but anyway. I'm very anxious to wait to see how your project goes :)

dl_terp 13y ago

I think the trick is going to be either: 1) finding hashtags with enough people desiring them so that you can order in bulk OR 2) finding a production method that is cheap/efficient enough that you can print 1 or 2 shirts without breaking the bank I wonder if you could do something like threadless did, where people vote for the "best hashtag" with their wallet, saying they would buy one if you produced the lot. Not bad for a weekend project though! Props to you!

china 13y ago
Thanks!

Killswitch 13y ago

Automate that shit son. Use Shirts.io and grab trending tags from Twitter, and display them, even tweet about them when a new trending tag hits, also allow users to enter their own hashtags... I'd buy one right now if I could input my own hashtag.

china 13y ago
who is to say I'm not using shirts.io already ;) and that "add a hashtag" feature is in the works...
- Killswitch 13y ago
  Atta boy. Now chop chop so I can order a shirt for an event on the 23rd.
  - china 13y ago
    What're ya lookin for?
    - Killswitch 13y ago
      #FFFFFF Just kidding, not 100% sure yet.
      - ryen 13y ago
        >#FFFFFF Would #FFFFFF on a white tee just be a blank tee? ;)
        Killswitch 13y ago
        Not sure, I just know the display shirts are black, haha.
antonius 13y ago
I agree. If a custom hashtag feature existed I'd be purchasing one ASAP.

cjrd 13y ago

I'd consider springing for a hashtagtee if the price was circa $10.

joebo 13y ago

I don't understand hash tags and I don't understand why someone would want them on a shirt. Is this best understood by immersing myself in the twitter culture? I don't get it from the outside. The main place I see hash tags is where networks will display them with a TV show. Aside from that, I don't understand how people come up with them and how they are used other than searching and linking? For example, #SalmonCat (a TV shirt on the home page) apparently refers to some tv show called Sam and Cat? Googling that reveals it's the 17th episode that aired today. If I loved the show enough, would I go buy a shirt with the hash tag on it? http://hashtagtee.me/products/salmoncat-shirt http://hashtagtee.me/products/salmoncat-shirt I am admittedly not one of the 230 million+ twitter users.

vxNsr 13y ago
If you've used facebook recently you'd know they've also added hashtags, their main purpose (and the way twitter started using them originally) is to connect your posts to a topic. I've also seen it used (and have used it myself) as a way to kinda add a punchline to a post that didn't have or need one.

jrosenberg99 13y ago

With all due respect to your work, somehow I never understood the "t-shirt" startup idea. We live in a world where there are many problems to tackle in health, science, government and politics, yet I've seen dozens of attempts at these t-shirt startups. I do not mean to discredit your work, that being said.

Falling3 13y ago
Probably because the OP was able to create this in a weekend or less in hopes of generating some passive income. That really doesn't compare to any problem (trivial or otherwise) in the areas you mentioned.
increment_i 13y ago
It was explicitly stated that it was a weekend attempt at generating passive income. OP wasn't exactly setting out to free Tibet here...
frankdenbow 13y ago
Its a $17 billion dollar market that has many ways of being served better. The OP did say that it was just a weekend project and we all have to start somewhere. Elon Musk's first company was an internet city guide.
QuasiAlon 13y ago
You can pretty much use this rationale with 95% of the internet businesses out there. Why try to produce a film via kickstarter when you can go to Africa and volunteer... etc.

ruswick 13y ago

From the About page: We use the highest quality shirts and deliver them with the most affordable pricing. Does this imply that the $25 price is the lowest possible point at which the OP can attain reasonable margins? If so, they really need to reevaluate their infrastructure, as $25 for a text-only tee shirt is very, very high, and the OP is likely being ripped off by their suppliers. Given the price, I have doubts about the willingness of potential customers to purchase shirts of this sort. The precedent for comparable services like Teespring and even for individual shirt vendors seems to be $10 to $20, substantially lower than what the OP is charging. Other than the pricing, I'm not entirely sure whether hashtags would make suitable shirts. Hashtags tend to be highly ephemeral, and most cease to be relevant within a few days. Most people keep shirts for years, and thus would be likely be wearing these shirts for a period far longer than the life of the hashtag. It's a novel idea, but at the end of the day it's trying to turn what are highly transient cultural artifacts into something permanent.

china 13y ago
The problem with teespring and the likes are that they have an MOQ that most people don't want to commit to. As for hashtags and being irrelevant in a few minutes/days/weeks, I'd argue that a shirt that says "#GoBlue" will always be somewhat relevant. But hey, we'll see! More a fun project than anything else.
- frankdenbow 13y ago
  The MOQ is a drag but it serves a purpose: you can use a higher quality printing process (screen printing) which has most of the cost in the setup. Personally have not found too many Direct to Garment (what most one off shirts are printed with) printers that I was happy with in terms of consistent quality. Trust me, it would make my life so much easier if I could print quality one offs. You may be better off doing each hashtag as a short term campaign, maybe Teespring has an API? Love your idea though! Think you should consider different color shirts: when we did black shirts in our tshirt subscription, people complained that they already have too many black shirts in their closet and wanted something different.

DaemonXI 13y ago

$25 for a shirt I could print at Zazzle for less? No thanks.

zachschau 13y ago

not bad for a weekend project!

china 13y ago
and its only Saturday!
progx 13y ago
Seems that some people have longer weekends than others ;-)

avalaunch 13y ago

What is your marketing strategy - other than the initial launch on Hacker News? I'm curious how other people market their passive income apps. I'm doubly curious because I've got my own t-shirt passive income app that I've been working on for a couple weekends now. EDIT: I just realized you are (wisely) tweeting out each shirt to the appropriate hashtag. So the marketing is essentially baked in. Nice.

china 13y ago
Twitter twitter twitter :)

aaronbrethorst 13y ago

#toomanychoices have a shirt of the day, pick it from the Twitter trending list, lather, rinse, repeat. Holy crap, I like this simplification so much I might go build it myself...

china 13y ago
dig the idea
- Zaheer 13y ago
  Have you ever the MobStub Facebook ads? They choose one item a day people really like/need (iPhone chargers for cheap) and feature it daily. Do something similar for your biz. Love the concept btw - saying this as a person experienced in the hashtag space (check my profile).

brianbreslin 13y ago

If your volume price on 1 off shirts is $12.99-14 on shirts.io, I honestly think you'd get 5-10x the volume at $20 flat price vs 25, 20 is closer to impulse buy range than $25.

frankdenbow 13y ago
This is good advice. We saw the same thing with our subscription and one off tshirt sales.
- QuasiAlon 13y ago
  can you share some numbers? did you gauge demand price elasticity ?
QuasiAlon 13y ago
If he's going to do $20 he might as well do $19.90 :)

forlorn 13y ago

Sorry for the offtopic, but it's such a pleasure to see #Pacers on the 1st position.

nosph 13y ago

If you make your blog a place where we can be updated about how your business are going in real time, it ll retain and grow your traffic and build a great comunnity around Good reference: http://groovehq.com/blog http://groovehq.com/blog

tommis 13y ago

Google "order a tshirt with your text", first hit that came up was for example this - http://www.spreadshirt.com/design-your-own-t-shirt-C59 http://www.spreadshirt.com/design-your-own-t-shirt-C59 Type in what ever #tag you want, $13.90 I bet with little more googlefu there's some cheaper places out there.

danmaz74 13y ago

Holy crap, I thought somebody had submitted my Hashtagify.me without telling me :)

QuasiAlon 13y ago

Very nice. Good luck! I would hide the hello world post from your blog :) Also, not sure what message it sends out when you write it runs from your basement.. perhaps it will hurt conversion.