B The Change…
As you may have noticed, people complain a lot on the internet. Complaints probably constitute 90% of the web’s content. Yet very few complainers actually act to remedy their perceived problem.
Not so with RamyB, shirt designer and creator of TeeTurtle.
Our story with Mr. B stretches back many years. He was a prolific purveyor of cute designs on Shirt.Woot back in the day. And when changes were made to Shirt.Woot, such as the switch from American Apparel to Anvil, RamyB was one of the first complainers (of many).
But he didn’t stop with complaint. He didn’t throw up his hands like so many (including us) and ruefully accept his fate. He built his own shirt site, TeeTurtle, to compete. And it has done very well. We don’t have the numbers, but we expect TeeTurtle now sells more shirts per year than Shirt.Woot. And this Google Trends graph seems to corroborate that the t-shirt student has indeed become the t-shirt master:
Crazy.
When an airline does something annoying, like charging for seat assignments and carry-on bags, many of us would grumble. Some of us would stop using that airline altogether. But very few of us would respond to this change by starting our own airlines. But that’s basically what RamyB did.
He did something else that contributed to Teeturtle’s success: He stuck with his brand. And what is his brand? Cuteness. You know what you’re getting with a Teeturtle tee – usually some word or phrase coupled with a enormously eyed animal. This approach worked on Shirt.Woot and it continues to work.
Branding, some say, is more about defining what you aren’t than what you are. And RamyB hasn’t tried to appeal to people who don’t dig cuteness. Want a super artsy, abstract design? Teeturtle isn’t the place for you. But if you have an unslakable appetite for all things squee-worthy, their site is like an all-you-can-eat buffet.
(We’re still working on our own shirt site and can only hope to match this level of brand definition. We’ll probably mess it up.)
You may not be a fan of the kawaii graphic shirts Mr. B hawks and you may not give two shits about graphic t-shirts, period. But you gotta respect any denizen of the internet willing to put their money where their complaining is.
It’s good to work with you again, Old Friend.
