Website: tilteed.com

So could you please start off by telling us who we are talking to and what you do at tilteed.com?

Well, my name is Patrick and I’m the main person behind Tilteed. I pretty much run everything from the web site development and maintenance to printing the shirts on our press to stuffing them and mailing them out.

Very nice! So how many people are actually behind the scenes at Tilteed.com?

Right now on a daily basis it’s a one person operation (me), though my wife does help out when she has time. The dog occasionally answers the door for the deliverymen, but other than that, he’s not much help in the running of the site.

LOL. Well you guys had me fooled, from the looks of how professional the site is it seems like you have a team running it! So before we go any further, how would you explain your site to someone that has never seen it?

That’s nice to hear because I’m definitely working really hard to keep the site professional, but hopefully personal at the same time. So Tilteed.com is a t-shirt design contest. It’s an open contest for anybody that wants to take a shot at our $500 dollar prize for winning designs. Winners are chosen by community voting and comments. We print the winners and sell them on Tilteed. Pretty simple really, nothing groundbreaking, but fun nonetheless.

Very cool! So what made you want to start tilteed.com and what do you feel makes you different than sites such as shirtfight.com, uneetee.com and other community based voting sites?

My wife and I decided to create Tilteed for a few reasons. I’ve always wanted the opportunity to create my own thing and build something from the ground up for myself and my family. We’ve always enjoyed t-shirts, whether it’s been finding funny ones to wear to creating our own with iron-ons, and now printing them on our screen press – it’s a fun market. So with the opportunity to do something on our own, with our own money and effort – it just seemed like a fun opportunity and a risk that we wanted to take. As far as how we’re different from other sites, there’s the differences like the 72 hour order period. But I think what really separates us is the fact that we are a relatively small, new site – but we’re trying to create something big. We wanted to offer a large prize and a short cycle in order to reward the artists and attract the top talent. Plus, everything is done here in house including the printing. We don’t outsource anything, so we’re pretty proud of that fact. That was one of the reasons we wanted to start Tilteed. Simply because we wanted to print some awesome designs ourselves. I can’t draw to save my life, but printing the shirts is enough a part of the creative process to be really satisfying.
That was a mouthful – lol.

LOL, definitely a lot of information there! All very cool stuff. I must say between your $500 prize money every 3 days and the generosity in giving away shirts, you guys have definitely made an early impact from what I have seen! So how much planning and tie went into launching tilteed.com?

From the moment we came up with the idea to try it, to the launch date was about 6 months. A good 3 months of research and market analysis, and then about 3 months of developing the site and prepping for the launch.

Very nice! That’s relatively quick for the magnitude of the site. You did mention that you screen print the shirts in house. What kind of shirts are you guys using, and do artists have any limitations when submitting their designs?

We’re printing on American Apparel – mens 2001 and women’s 2102. There are a few limitations we try to make very clear in our submission guidelines. We have a 6 color press, and although it says our print size is limited to 15 x 17, we’ve actually increased that last week so that we can do about 16 x 22 – which is about a full sized print on a medium.

Very cool! Well all the art that I have seen has been incredible! Just want to say keep up the great work, we look forward to seeing your new designs! Is there anything else you would like to mention before we sign off?

Just wanted to thank you for the feature – love IATT and we’re excited to be on there!

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