3.1 How does Threadless produce an appropriate rationale to persuade their stakeholders of the benefits of a creative and innovative management idea? (Learning Outcome: 3.1)

Stakeholders are the people who takes interest in to the organisation and gets affected by its decision which could be directly or indirectly. It can be group of people or individual or any organisation or employees of own company. Vary from stakeholder’s power and interest, Stakeholders plays major role in the organisations in terms of innovation process and decisions as well.
Threadless is an online community of artists and an e-commerce website based in Chicago, Illinois. Co-founders Jake Nickell and Jacob DeHart started Threadless in 2000 with $1,000.
Threadless produce an appropriate rationale to persuade their stakeholders of the benefits of a creative and innovative management idea when they began as a t-shirt design competition on the now defunct dreamless.org, a forum where users experimented with computers, code, and art. Nickell and DeHart invited users to post their designs on a dreamless thread (hence the name Threadless), and they would print the best designs on T-shirts. And he produced his business as just a hobby, a way for people to get their artwork out.
By 2002, the hobby had surpassed $100,000 worth of T-shirts and attracted more than 10,000 community members, mostly artists in their teens and 20s. The user base has continued to grow from 70,000 members at the end of 2004 to more than 700,000 today. Sales in 2006 hit $18 million -- with profits of roughly $6 million. In 2007, growth continued at more than 200 percent, with similar margins.
The rationale to persuade their stakeholders comes because Threadless isn’t just a place to buy stuff. It’s a place where people do stuff too. The people design the shirt ideas; decide which shirts get made, post to forums, upload photos of themselves wearing the shirts, etc. the result? People are attached to Threadless. As Don Norman says, “We are much more emotionally attached to products for which we feel some involvement.”
Threadless makes people feel like partners, not just customers. That’s why people become Myspace friends with Threadless. They start blogs about Threadless (like this or this or this). They care what happens.
The rationale to persuade their stakeholders comes also from the attractive Programme as it’s playful: Threadless nails the playful part of the process. Check out the “A song about this tee” MP3 on shirt pages like the one for Happy Hospital. Or how about the Willy Wonka inspired Find the Golden Tag and Win! (“If you receive your order and your shirt has a gold foil tag you win a free tee of your choice!”).
Q. How do you become a skinnyCorp employee? How can I become a skinnyCorp employee?

A. You have to be amazing. When we hire, which we don’t do very often, that’s the first thing we look for. Amazingness Followed very closely by awesomeness, and then insaneosity. You also have to be able to hold your breath for 6 minutes while completing a mile-long sprint. Do you have what it takes?!
When the site asks for a birthdate it follows up with a link that says, “Who wants to know?” instead of the typical “Why do we need this?”
This playful attitude is part of why people get excited about Threadless. Here’s what Kathy Sierra says about playfulness: “Brains love play. Find a way to bring more play (or at least a sense of playfulness) into someone’s life, and you might just end up with a fan. Brains evolved to play, and apparently the bigger the brain, the more likely it is to play. Play turns the brain on.
Plus, there’s a subscription revenue stream via the 12 club (a limited edition tee is sent every month for an entire year). There’s a Street Team affiliate program where you can earn points toward future purchases by referring sales or submitting a photo of you wearing a tee. All these approaches wisely spread Threadless’ eggs to different baskets.
In addition to that Threadless releases 10 new designs each Monday and reprints more shirts throughout the week. Customers can request reprints of sold out designs on the Bring ‘Em Back page. The cost of a t-shirt is around $20. Styles include men’s tees and women’s tees, V-necks, scoop necks, and boat neck tees. Other clothing includes hoodies and tank tops.

They also sound out crisp emails that get straight to the point with photos of the latest tees.

Also, Threadless cares about the details. The shirts are quality. The designs are well executed. It’s not just the products, either. The site has lots of nice UI touches too.

Threadless is on point. Real, profitable, human, funny, quality, charitable, and independent, it’s about time more people started paying attention