1 min. with a superhero: Eric Edelstein from springleap.com
by Fred on 03/11/08 at 11:49 am
5 comments
This morning we’re privileged to be chatting to the inimitable serial entrepreneur, Eric Edelstein, the co-founder and CEO of SA’s biggest online t-shirt shop springleap.com. We’ve written about springleap before, and he’s spoken at a Heavy Chef Session about his endeavours, so today we get up close and personal.
OK, so we’re all big fans of springleap. Tell us what’s it all about.
springleap is all about crowdsourcing, that is, letting the community suggest ideas, and letting the community discuss, debate and vote on the ideas, to find out what ultimately gets produced. we’ve started springleap with Tshirts, but it can go in any direction.
What makes springleap different?
Perhaps you should be asking “what makes springleap the same”? We’re trying our best to have the same culture as Google – fun and creative. I look at the googleplex pictures every few days for inspiration. We’re trying to have the same culture as clothing companies that believe in quality over quantity. We’re trying to have the same commitment to marketing the springleap winning designers as the best PR company in the world. What makes us different is taking all these areas and putting them together in one company.
You’ve been involved in so many other ventures, mainly tech based. How did you make the ‘leap’ into the clothing industry?
Eran & myself found ourselves constantly talking about the creative talent that was out there but not being found – so we opened a funky clothing store, which eventually morphed over time into the springleap website. Now everyone has a chance to get noticed.
We know that clothing is a cutthroat industry. What about your job makes you lie awake at night?
I wish I was lying awake at night. This morning I was working till the sun came up. It’s like that pretty much everyday. I’ve forgotten what sleep is!
An insomniac entrepreneur – that sounds like the average Ideate reader. What education do you have?
Educated by the school of hard knocks. Seriously, although I’ve got a Finance undergrad degree, and a postgrad degree in eCommerce, I believe that real education comes from experience.
You must have some great stories. Tell us one disaster related to the business
We bought cotton and gave it to a CMT which is a guy that cuts up cotton into Tshirts. He did a shocking job, and we refused to pay. Unfortunately he’s sitting with a large quantity of our fabric which he was keeping for us to cut up into Tshirts the following month. And yet we had to pay for the cotton as it was bought under our name. Our cotton is being held hostage. Worse than the pirate ships!
What kind of customers are you looking for – besides every art student in South Africa?
Please refer to essays 47a, 53d, and 142g for details, ha! Customers are both the general public, and trendy retailers and shops looking to stock springleap stock. We’ve already had orders from shops in Australia and Austria, but want to move onto the “B’s” now. We want to get the word out to South African’s to enter their Tshirt designs to springleap and stand a chance of winning the R7482,18 main prize each month. We want YOU and everyone you know to vote on all the designs so the best ones win. And we want companies to sponsor prizes for the winners, so that we can give the designers MORE!
So let’s whittle it down a little. What is your perfect customer?
All customers are perfect! But if their credit card doesn’t bounce when trying to pay, then they’re even more perfect.
Your secret to success, in business as well as with springleap?
Keep going, and try different things till you get it right. And enjoy the journey. When you look back, you’ll see the big picture and forget how hard it was to keep going when things were tough. So try enjoy the good and bad of the adventure.
Besides all the noise on Ideate, what is your best marketing tool for springleap?
We’re loving online marketing and offline PR. We still want to get more guerilla. And thanks to all the amazing bloggers who have written about springleap – at the moment, we’re seeing on average TWO blog postings mentioning springleap EVERY DAY!
Once again, clothing is hard core. Tell us some pitfalls to avoid in your industry
I’m getting a headache just thinking about all the pitfalls. Writing about the one disaster story was enough negativity for one day!
OK, so it’s clearly not easy, despite ‘opening a t-shirt shop’ being up there with ‘opening my own bar’ as a big entrepreneurial fantasy. Destroy a myth about your industry…
You’re kidding? Everything you hear is true!
Eric, spill the beans. Tell us something that no one knows about you.
I hate the Internet! Just kidding! When WIMPY ran a competition to find the 5 letters spelling WIMPY about 25 years ago, I spent days asking everyone coming out of the WIMPY’s for their letters, and won R50 when I finally was given the “limited edition” Y.
What is the best business lesson you’ve learned so far?
Find a business you can be passionate about. I set up a niche website years ago in an industry I have no interest in learning more about. It still makes me money, but could make me a lot more if I was passionate about it.
Describe your average day at springleap
There is NO average day at springleap. Every day is totally different. When an average day becomes routine, it will be time to move on.
How many people do you have in your team?
There are 11 of us in springleap at the moment, and we have 4 Interns joining us in January for a year. And we’re looking for a hot-shot motivated dynamic sales person, so if you know anyone…
Time to talk big. What is your BHAG?
My 10 year goal will be to invest in a few dynamic start-up’s and spend a morning each week with each of them mentoring and motivating them.
The afternoon will be spent learning new skills at my favourite coffee shop / beach, and teaching my kids to become future winners of “The Apprentice”.
And just maybe a foray into politics.
And, finally, a word of advice to Ideate readers: is there a lot of money to be made in this industry?
Our competitor in the US sold a Quarter Billion Rand worth of Tshirts last year. springleap is more than just Tshirts. Get in touch with springleap and lets see how we can help one another?
Thanks Eric, it’s been great chatting to you. We wish you all the best on your path to inevitable global domination. Keep in touch, and keep us filled in with details of your progress. Ideate readers – go to springleap and support this truly ambitions SA start-up!
Fred Roed is the marketing guy in the Ideate crew. He runs a web marketing company called World Wide Creative and loves writing about people out there doing marketing right. View more articles by Fred.
Eric from springleap
Nov 3rd, 2008
haha – that made my day Fred & the Ideate team. Tx for grilling me like that!
Jamie
Nov 3rd, 2008
I was bringing in Threadless T’s for a while and selling them in South Africa, I found it very difficult to sell them(Part of the problem was at least I think was that where I was selling them was probably not the right place).
I would be really interested to find out how successful spring leap has been.
Not to steal any ideas or anything it would just be interesting to know how an ecommerce site of this nature has succeeded or not in the South African market.
I think springleap is a great site and very well done and I think knowing this could indicate the maturity of our E culture in South Africa.
Because from what I can see the site is great , so if it didn’t work it must be the people
Eric from springleap
Nov 3rd, 2008
Hi Jamie,
Been awhile – I remember dropping you a mail with a question about toys a year or 2 ago (and think i even gave you a call and we spoke) – what a small world the net makes things!
springleap is coming along great – both the registrations, the designs submitted (quality and quantity) and the sales.
But just like any other business (e or not) it will take awhile to get market penetration.
But we did expect that before we began springleap.
E
Bruce
Nov 4th, 2008
Heard Eric speak at one of the Heavy Chef sessions a while back, was such an inspiration for those starting out with their own ventures. Great interview, great website! I ordered a shirt a few weeks back so looking forward to getting that in the post!
Just as an aside – I emailed Eric a few months back with a question about technical and functional spec writing for start-ups, and he responded with an incredibly helpful and LONG email with all the insight he has gained over the years and with his many projects. The fact that someone so busy seems to always have the time to assist others and share his knowledge speaks volumes…and probably goes a long way to explain his successes. Super hero indeed – good luck with Springleap, i’m sure it will be a huge success!
Jamie
Nov 4th, 2008
Great stuff man good luck.
I sincerely wish the best for you guys.
In support I just went and bought a T : Pandamonium
Looking forward to wearing it.