Why do multinationals use amateurs to solve scientific and technical problems?

In 2000, Jake Nickell and Jacob DeHart, were college dropouts living in Chicago, though neither had found much work putting their educations to use. The Jakes didn't set out to democratize the world of graphic design; they just wanted to make cool T-shirts.

Both were members of a growing subculture that treated the simple T-shirt as a canvas for visual flights of fancy. So when they met after entering an online T-shirt design competition, they already had a lot in common. For starters, both thought it would be a good idea to start their own design competition.

But instead of using a jury, they would let the designers choose the winner among themselves. That November a company was born.

Nickell and DeHart launched Threadless.com with a plan that was still in letting people submit designs for a cool T-shirt. Users would then vote for the best one. The winner would get free T-shirts with his or her winning design and everyone else will get to buy that shirt.

The rise of Threadless

At first the Two Jakes, as people would call them, ran Threadless from Nickell’s bedroom. But then the company grew more.

People liked voting on T-shirts and the designs were less serious and dull than those sold by Urban Outfitters or Old Navy. The winning designs began appearing on hit TV shows through hip-hop artists. The company has then doubled its revenue every year since.

Threadless receives 1000 designs each week that are voted on by nearly 600 000 members of the Threadless community. The company then selects nine shirts from the top 100 to print.

Each design sells out because Threadless has a sense of consumer demand before they ever send the design to the printer.

Popularity for the Jakes

Threadless generated $17m in revenues in 2006 and by all accounts has continued its fast rate of growth. Its best sellers are on regular view at coffee shops and nightclubs from London to Los Angeles.

The Jakes now enjoy a certain degree of notoriety themselves.

Nickell and Hart have become heroes to struggling designers and they have even given lectures to MBA students at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.