A better tomorrow

More news from Germany. Today I’ll introduce to you (in case you don’t know them already): A Better Tomorrow (referred to as A-B-T hereafter). A bit more than an online shop, A-B-T runs a design contests where fine T-shirts with a kind of unique style emerge. It also works as a distribution platform for small labels and has an interactive aspect to it. In short, it is where German design goodness meets. The site doesn’t speak English (yet), but you should all be able to find the word “T-Shirt” and click on it. I’ll just let the T-Shirts speak for themselves - and the company. One of its founders, André Grünhoff, was kind enough to answer me some question for the new Interview section in my German “Shirtspotting” Blog.

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Thanks again, and here he is in his own words after the fold:

What was the idea behind “A better tomorrow”?
The idea was to create THE (German) adress for good design and streetwear. The whole thing consists of three parts: Design contest, streetwear and the community. In the context of the design contest the label A better tomorrow was born. We wanted to build up the brand with the people out there. The shirt contest is just the beginning, in long term there will be a whole collection of design items, including hoodies, sneakers, caps and a lot more.
Part two is the streetwear section. Here too we wanted to have nothing of the usual stuff, offering just assorted labels of young designers. Not the big brands, no mainstream. People shall visit us because they know we got the stuff that is hard or not to get elsewhere. We offer our brands a shop system that they can administer by themselves. We take care of payment, service and marketing and work as a distribution platform. This part is to be extended, as regards content and technique.
Last but not least these are things one would like to talk about. The designers exchange thoughts about their designs mutually; customers can chat with the designers about the collections. We often start actions that one can talk about and so slowly a super nice community is growing that we’re very fond of.

How did the page start and what were the first steps?
We started the conceptual design March last year, whereby the idea was present in our heads for longer. In June we started with the first designs and the software development. We went online in September last year. So to say our baby has just turned one.

So you produce your own shirts, distribute the streetwear of small labels and host a design contest. What would you like A-B-T to be known as? As a shop, a portal, as a community, a mixture of all that, something else?
First of all I ‘m not alone. we started with two people, Tim and me. Since two months Peter is working as a developer for us and we’re very proud of having him with us.
To the question: I don’t like labelling us using a bunch of buzzwords. We’re just a place where you can have fun, design things, chat and shop.

Did you model A-B-T on other sites, like for example Threadless?
Of course. That’s the way things go. You take some parts of it, add your own ideas and turn it into something new. Threadless has definitely been a role model for us. We were members from the very beginning, have accompanied the development and have seen how great it turned out to be. The founders Jake and Jacob are just awesome guys. And they have proven that a format like this can work extremely successfully.

How big is your community now?
We have a fine little community consisting of some hundreds of designers and several thousand users.

What do you think of the German market for original design ware? I’m under the impression that it in other countries, especially in the English speaking countries it is way more vital … do you agree?
Yes. The German market is huge but also difficult. Germans are not necessarily trend setters. Only when something is cool in other countries it gets adapted here.

What does this mean for your business?
I still see a lot of potential for us, since everybody has to reach his target group. It just depends on what you are looking for. One who doesn’t know our shop cannot buy our clothes. We’re only getting started and growing in a very organic manner, only via word of mouth and viral marketing.
But all will be fine in the end … :-)

Last words or statements?
Sure. First of all, thank you for letting me do that interview. Continue your blog, I really like it. Und a big hello to all you people out there!
A-B-T loves you!

P.S.: In case you wonder: yes, they ship worldwide.

Shirts I used:
Pimp my Marx : Skull : Funtastic four : Dentamax : Feuervogel : Firestarter

October 21, 2007 | Filed Under german, shirt sites 

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