Mail

Real-Time Research
Threadless ["The Customer Is the Company," June] is clearly an extremely innovative company. It sounds as if its next venture will be bigger and more exciting. I have one issue, however. MIT's Eric von Hippel implied Threadless spells the end of traditional market research and large R&D departments.

You can call it crowdsourcing or customer-driven design, but what Threadless does is essentially market research. I think of Threadless's user base as one large consumer panel. Threadless's business model immediately implements the findings from this market intelligence. What traditional market research does is similar. It provides the framework, methodology, and discipline to solicit feedback from customers. The rise of Threadless does not mean the end of market research but a transformation in the way companies implement it. That's what's changing.
Paul Janowitz
founder and CEO
Sentient Services, Austin

Threadless is one of my favorite companies. But I've never thought of what it does as crowdsourcing. I guess I never took a step back and looked at the business model. Part of the charm of buying Threadless shirts is that they represent something unique. If you wear one, you won't see anyone else wearing the same shirt. As the company grows, I wonder if it will become too watered-down and generic. When everyone and his 50-year-old uncle are wearing a Threadless shirt, the company could very well lose what made it popular in the first place.
Ron Toledo
Account coordinator
Airfoil Public Relations
Palo Alto, California

Everyday Innovation
I was particularly struck by your recent articles on innovation, especially "Making Inspiration Routine" [June]. I run a small company that specializes in creating wholesome activities for children. We started with greeting cards, but that market stalled. When we reexamined our company goal, we found a new market niche without overhauling our entire business philosophy. Creativity and thinking outside the box have been crucial to our growth, as they are in any company. It was reassuring to see that Inc. felt the same way.
Frank Fabian
Executive director
Rocking Chair Studio
Kintnersville, Pennsylvania

A Cause for Concern
In describing the Grant Thornton global survey on private companies ["The Best Cause of All," June], you ask why American business owners are the least likely to be motivated by "saving the earth." Perhaps it's because we are practical and realistic and know that saving anything begins in our own community. Add up all the local efforts of small companies, and they amount to a lot. Maybe American business owners couldn't relate to the vague objective of "saving the earth." But many of us are sincerely doing what we can.
Alice Mayer
Owner
Mayer Photography
Matthews, North Carolina

Am I the only business owner who reacts viscerally to the politically motivated phrase "saving the earth"? Certainly, we all should be adopting behaviors that lead to a sustainable future. But for many Americans, a sustainable future is a concept that generates an entirely different emotional meaning and suggests significantly less governmental intrusion into our lives than "saving the earth."
Robert White
Chairman and CEO
Extraordinary People
Denver

Spolsky's New Digs
I would imagine that Joel Spolsky's exhaustive search for a new office [How Hard Could It Be? June] could signal the beginning of the end for his company. When your CEO starts worrying more about the brand of faucets in the bathroom than anything else, you know that your company's creativity has run its course. You can't imagine how silly this article sounds to people outside the Big Apple.
Charles Hall
Web developer
SAS Institute
Cary, North Carolina

 1 | 2  NEXT