I was among a group of shopkeepers who visited the CafePress offices the Monday after the conference. This was not actually my first time to do so, but my first at this location. Since opening in 1999, CafePress has been in a string of “offices” including Fred’s garage, a small office, a slightly bigger office and, now, an office space which essentially takes over the entire floor of a highrise building. This string, aside from the “garage office” doesn’t include production facilities.
I couldn’t help but think of the my last visit to CafePress back in 2002, in the “office string” this would be the “small office”. At that time I had met Maheesh’s fabled cocker spaniel, Nugget, who had inspected me curiously in the lobby as soon as I entered. Other dog employees were in the office as well. The people employees were all very friendly and they were all curious about me as a shopkeeper. I remember one person coming in and sitting on the floor of another person’s office cubicle, playing with a dog and chatting.
Fast forward to Monday, 2006. Getting off the elevators you are hit with the “CafePress green” on the walls. You enter the actual CafePress area and though the walls are not green, the waiting room is accented with green pillows. A display of products is straight ahead and behind that is a glass wall where you can see folks in a meeting. As the group I am in examines the products on display I got excited to see a license plate frame from my shop and those in the meeting, pause a moment, noticing us and wave enthusiastically as if they hadn’t just seen us all weekend.
Taking the tour I noticed changes from my last visit: bigger offices, folks relatively “dressed up” in the sense that I didn’t see anyone wearing shorts, no dogs. I noticed more similarities though. Folks were still super friendly. We unexpectedly cornered people in their offices yet they were willing to talk to us at length. In fact, we spent several hours in an office with a futon seat, guitar, many puzzles and a lava lamp. I kept thinking we were going to get the person in trouble. Along the walls at CafePress are posters with shopkeeper profiles along with samples of their products, I can tell that dispite moving into bigger and more traditional business looking digs, the folks there are still focused on who really makes them run… us. We were told this as well but seeing the displays and the use of products in individual’s office areas reinforced this fact to me.
Juxtaposing my two visits I have to say I’m really excited about CafePress’ growth and their future. They’ve been growing like crazy but have still kept their friendly and excited atmosphere. Seeing the staff they have drove home to me that CafePress is a powerful ally for a small business owner. You can open a store and instantly have folks who protect you from fraudulent orders and lawsuits and others who analyze the “Big Picture” view of CafePress but figure out ways to help the individual shopkeeper as well as the company as a whole. Topping all this of course are the highly approachable founders of the company, Fred and Maheesh. At CP Connect they never disappeared into a “back room” where convention goers could not talk to them, quite the opposite really, they approached us.
Who knows what the future will bring for CafePress and for us as T-shirt Entreprenuers? Personally I am quite happy to see business models like CafePress around and I think they and other businesses like them will continue to power the ideas and dreams of the individual.
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