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The Tees of Tysons
What do frat boys, church groups, military units, and marching bands across the country have in common? They all custom-order t-shirts from Northern Virginia-based, nationally positioned CustomInk.com, one of the internet's most popular designed-by-you apparel sites.
Since the company's launch in 2000, business growth has resembled teenagers' skyrocketing jean-skirt hemlines: borderline obscene. In their first full year (2001), Custom Ink produced an estimated 100,000 shirts. "We're doing 25 times that now," says gregarious CEO and president Marc Katz.
So how does Custom Ink stand out among dozens of similar companies-besides their high rankings in search engine results? Start looking for clues in their Tysons Corner headquarters.
Here, you'll find Katz and fellow Harvard (class of '98) mate COO Dave Christensen, who co-founded the business in 2000, Having seen the dot-com bust act as a wrecking ball to so many startups, the duo was careful to ground their internet era tactics in good old-fashioned business standards. Like investing in employees and providing superior customer service. Being financially responsible. And, of course, developing a kick-fanny product and web interface. One finds evidence of all these integral parts at both the physical headquarters and their cyberspace home.
Custom Ink's 90-person team is collectively young, hip, and attractive. They dress for success in comfortable clothes like jeans or cargo pants. Cubicles brim with creative fodder: a Napoleon Dynamite poster, a Lucite mobile, action figures; and office walls are flanked with paintings that look like they might have been donated from the local elementary school. But they weren't. The staff made them at a painting party thrown by higher-ups to encourage creativity. On two occasions while staring at these paintings waiting for Katz, laughter bubbles out from under his office door-once in a strategy meeting, the other in a job interview. You don't have to be here long to get the hint: This is a rockin' place to work. In fact, Washingtonian ranked it among 2005's 55 "Great Places to Work" based on their atmosphere, rewards, and benefits.
Continue your recon mission by popping onto Custom Ink's website. Its clean, straightforward main page displays a sample of the huge range of products they offer, from basic Hanes shirts to Bic pens and even the ubiquitous beer can coolers. Let your eyes drift to the right sidebar and marvel at the company's decision to prominently feature uncensored customer feedback. "Your company sucks!" once graced the site, for example, as did "If Custom Ink were a girl, I'd marry it." (Nearly all feedback leans toward the latter.) Misspellings, curse words, marriage proposals and all, reviews get posted in real time.
In the site's "Lab," designing a product feels almost like playing a video game. Drop text on the front or back, move or rotate it, change the font or color, upload a photo or personal artwork to incorporate in the design, or even plop on a plunger, a biohazard symbol or a dancing couple-just some of their thousands of clip art files. You can stop, save, and revisit your design at any point before its final send-off, and once sent, a graphic designer emails you a proof for approval. Currently, screen-printing requires a minimum order of six shirts or 12 embroideries, but Custom Ink recently launched a test site that will allow customers to design and purchase just one screened shirt at a time. Katz hopes to have it linked to the main site by press time.
Whether producing one of D.C.-based Murky Coffee's Aretha Franklin tees or an activist group's "No Bush in '04" panties (yes, that was an actual order!), Custom Ink prides itself on facilitating fun in people's lives. And lucky for the company, as Katz points out, "Jeans and tee shirts are never going to go out of style." His two cents on fashion? "If you want something unique, design it yourself."