If you want to build a huge business, building a platform where other people can make money using it is a great way to do that. eBay, AirBnB, Uber/Lyft/etc, Teespring. Even Google, with their adwords product (and reddit with it's self serve ads).
There's lots of great businesses where people pay you for a service, but if you can create one where people make money when you do, they are heavily invested in your success.
Yeh absolutely. It's another extension of the sharing economy. These kind of business models change societal habits and as generations shed, the sharing model will become more prominent (It's even been predicted by Gartner; not that this should be taken as gospel). Think about the amount of income you could make from renting your flat (AirBnB), Being a driver on Uber, Selling your skills on Udemy and now selling your fanbase personalised t-shirts on TeeSpring. Indeed it's similar to sites like Zazzle but adds a twist by combining the concept with Kickstarter.
We are making entrepreneurs out of ordinary people, it's fking awesome.
It's not fking awesome. Most people should not be entrepreneurs. They don't have the correct risk profile. We're turning every job into a casual arrangement, and because there is a tech based intermediary we cheer it on. How many of us want to actually build a career, raise a family, or retire on the backs of a half dozen hustles?
"Uber driver" is just another term for unemployed.
You know, getting paid on commission is nothing new or invented by techies. Do you think cab drivers had steady salaries before Uber came about? No, they earned depending on the rides they made. And in places like NYC, they actually start the day underwater, after paying $100+ to lease a medallion for just one shift.
Not all sharing economy "jobs" are created equal though. Being an Uber driver (or Taskrabbit or Instacarter or Postmate courier,etc) is certainly closer to being a servant than being an owner of a business. If we're thinking of societal impact, we have to also keep in mind the widening disparity between owners and workers.
I'm not sure I agree that it's part of the sharing economy because the users aren't gaining income from assets they already own. Teespring is making sure that they control the platform that users need to continue doing business, similar to how Apple controls the App Store, Google with AdSense, Amazon, etsy, eBay, etc. If they can expand the offering beyond t-shirts, this is a really interesting way to open small scale production to a broader audience.
> We are making entrepreneurs out of ordinary people, it's fking awesome.
Or, people are naturally entrepreneurs stifled by regulation and AirBnB, Uber, Udemy and TeeSpring are simply allowing the people's natural entrepreneur spirit to shine through by shifting the compliance burden away from them.
>>We are making entrepreneurs out of ordinary people, it's fking awesome.
>people are naturally entrepreneurs stifled by regulation and AirBnB, Uber, Udemy and TeeSpring...
Not really. Renting out your house to someone is not entrepreneurial. Neither is driving people around in your car or teaching people. Further, I know of no regulation that prevents people from teaching for money. As far as Teespring "designers", those people are not entrepreneurs either. They are simply affiliates who market for Teespring and who also happen to give over whatever creative ability they have to Teespring with the hope of being paid for it.
In all of these cases, the people being touted as "entrepreneurs" are no different from employees working as independent contractors, and in some cases it's worse. The only entrepreneurs here are the companies that built the platforms and convinced people to give over their time and resources to generate revenue for their business.
One can make value judgments about whether it's good or bad for the people who participate, but to say that they are creating entrepreneurs is literally saddening.
I agree with your points. I was stretching my usage of 'entrepreneurs' to make a point as you noticed.
> Further, I know of no regulation that prevents people from teaching for money.
I do, because unfortunately the government has been using them against bootcamp schools:
> To achieve compliance, institutions must pay a $5,000 application fee; provide a course catalog, enrollment agreement, and performance fact sheet publicly on their websites; and submit a few other minor documents included on the application.
> Over the past month, California regulators sent cease and desist letters to many of these hacker boot camps, saying they run afoul of the state’s educational laws, as first reported by Venturebeat. “They’re not properly licensed, and the law requires them to be licensed to offer an educational service like they are,” says Russ Heimerich, a spokesperson for the California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education, or BPPE.
Apples and oranges. There's a big difference between starting an "educational institution" and sharing knowledge or otherwise teaching for pay as an individual.
And, in the case of the boot camps you mentioned, it kind of argues against your original point. That is, they apparently ran afoul of the regulations because of their attempts to make it a business that could be classified as an institution versus there being individuals who could have generated income from their labor, if not for some onerous regulation.
More relevantly, no one would have stopped any "teacher" from creating Udemy style online courses on their own domain.
That situation in CA is intresting though. I wasn't aware of that. Thanks for sharing.
There's lots of great businesses where people pay you for a service, but if you can create one where people make money when you do, they are heavily invested in your success.