Jake Nickell and Jacob DeHart from Chicago are the founders of Threadless. They got the idea for starting Threadless after they had taken part in an online T-shirt design contest: Why do stores print so many shirts with different designs and only make money on the ones people actually like and buy? Nickell and DeHart figured they would make more money if they found a way to only print popular shirt designs. Therefore, the duo started Threadless, which is an online shop where people can design their own T-shirts and submit them for an Internet competition on the site. Other people then have the possibility to hold a vote on the six best T-shirt designs among the roughly 700 designs that are submitted to Threadless in a week. Threadless does not only get lots of design ideas almost for free, but they also found a way to only sell popular T-shirts that people are more likely to buy. And their profit margin is high: the shirts only cost $4, but Threadless sells them for $15 and up. Last year Nickell and DeHart have sold $16 million worth of shirts. They had just finished high school when they had the idea for their online store. It was an idea, and it made them millionaires.

Link to a more detailed story: ‘Project Runway’ for the t-shirt crowd