Lately I’ve been spending my time thinking about value chains (read: lately I’ve been boring friends by repeatedly steering conversations to deep dives on how value chains are changing).

As an industry is forced to evolve by externalities (i.e. digital disruption across traditional media value chains (the source of my distraction the past few weeks)) there’s tremendous opportunity in figuring out the new value chain and fitting into it.

Here’s something we can learn from t-shirts.

For years now I’ve sought out semi-quirky, yet originally fun t-shirts. Since 2001 I’ve ordered them online, generally from The Giant Peach. However, over the past 6 months I’ve found the best price/selection for what I want at Threadless.com.

Today, Tim O’Reilly discussed Threadless:

Users submit ideas for t-shirts, which other users vote up, till the most popular are manufactured and sold. The site would be cool enough just as a social networking site. There’s a rich community, and everyone is having a blast. (Kathy Sierra ought to give it a shout out on Creating Passionate Users!) But think about it for a moment: This is a “crowd-sourced” manufacturing business.

Crowdsourcing is (from Wikipedia) “a model that depends on work being done outside the traditional company walls, but while outsourcing is typically performed by lower paid professionals, crowdsourcing relies on a combination of volunteers and low-paid amateurs who use their spare time to create content, solve problems, or even do corporate R&D.”

Threadless is a great example of harnessing crowdsourcing into a valuable business outside of content/etc (as well as one with community, …). There are a lot of other wonderful examples of this (hint: my love grows stronger for P&G!) happening and the effect of crowdsourcing on value chains is staggering (Getty saw $2 Billion in market cap evaporate due to competition from crowdsourced photo sharing sites).

While many see staggering change as a threat, entrepreneurs see it as an opportunity. The thought isn’t if your industry’s value chain is going to change.

It is.

You need to start listing the externalities that will shift it so that you can begin to think of where it’s going. With great change comes great opportunity. It’s only when you ignore the tide that you find yourself swept out to sea.

How can you Threadless your industry?

[Note to local friends - I’ve shotgunned all current and future designs from Threadless. I recommend you check out Look-Zippy for your t-shirt needs]

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