Comment by frankdenbow | Hacker News Reader

Comment by frankdenbow | Hacker News Reader

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I see your point but my experience has been different. I run a similar service (http://StartupThreadsMonthly.com) and I struggled with this point to start (we actually shipped out Twilio shirts as our #2 company). What I realized/decided on after running this for 7 months is that

A) People who are scattered around the world dont always get a chance to get startup tees at events. 40% of our shirts are shipped internationally. They love feeling like they are a part of the community even if they are overseas

B) We ended up trying to add more value to each package by adding in not just a shirt but stickers, discounts on services, etc, to make the value of the bag much higher than what they are saying. (Heck, I even lowered the price after I saw HN comments a while ago about another service that was similar)

C) We dont do any logo shirts, so that they were exclusive to the site and were interesting enough to wear outside of the startup context.

The combination of these things definitely helped me keep some of the subscribers we have had and they seem happy.

This is a cool idea, hope the YC tees takes off! I'm subscribing for sure :-)

Hey Frank :)

> They love feeling like they are a part of the community even if they are overseas

Companies that give out swag should learn from this: ship swag anywhere. If someone does something on their own to provide value to your community then $70 to ship a t-shirt to Lebanon is worth it.

Certainly! Working on a tshirt api (http://swagmate.startupthreads.com/) to do just this, since the hard part for companies I have spoken to seems to be the managing of this process

Is it still "swag" (stuff we all get) if you pay for it (and eventually for the shipping)? I bought a couple of tees and stickers from Github because I love everything about them and I thought it would be nice to support them - that was before that $100mm investment. I think people should buy merch from companies they admire and want to support even more. $15 bucks a month for a tshirt with the name of a service you don't use and might even never heard of seems a bit weird.

So would you NOT buy stickers from them post investment? Isn't the bigger point of stickers to show the world that you support Github, rather than to financially support them?

Startup Threads is a cool idea. If you're one of the people who is not interested in "swag" just don't sign up. I don't understand why people get offended by products. No one is forcing the "swag." If you've ever run your own startup, there is a certain thrill that comes from sticking your first stickers or wearing your first tshirt. The next greatest thrill is seeing your sticker in the wild on shirt on someone on the street. It's about pride. If people are willing to fund the spread of those feelings, then all the power to them.

Saw the link, and expected it to be posted by you!

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