Now your Facebook photos can get a second home other than the Facebook itself - tees! Yes, I am talking about the same company, SocialWear, we reviewed on our blog a while back. You can have a broad overview of this cool start-up: SocialWear: Don't Just Live A Social Life...Wear It!

In brief, SocialWear turns your tee into Facebook wall and imprints your personal Facebook pics for a decent 40 dollars. It comes with pretty awesome effects & filters and features.

We have the founder of SocialWear, Martin Preston, with us to tell us deeply about the whole concept and share his plans on expanding. Since he has changed his idea into reality and now selling online successfully, it would be great to learn about his experience. Catch his exclusive interview with us below:


Martin, please introduce yourself to E-junkies.

My name is Martin Preston, founder of Socialwear.com.


Tell us about the inception of 'SocialWear'. Do you have any story/incident to share with us?

My mates and I went clubbing in Ibiza last year and we got fed up of seeing other people wearing the same tees as us. We realized that there's a real tipping point with fashion where you go from feeling like an individual who's discovered something really cool, to looking like someone who's fallen out of a shop and is rather lacking in imagination. We decided that there must be another way to create cool tees and when we got home and started sharing our photos on Facebook, the idea of SocialWear was born. I have to credit my friend Dave Ancell with the original idea. He called me up one lunchtime and 20 minutes later, I quit my job in advertising and started working on making it happen.


















How did you go about developing the whole concept, specially, additional features like effects & filters and QR code?

Lots of trial and error went into arriving at the final concept. We met with experts in all areas and found that most of them were only too happy to help. As far as the site development is concerned, we focused on the end user and tested the concept throughout the whole process. We held focus groups in my living room at home and fed beer and pizza to anyone who would come and use the site for an hour. We recruited users from student unions and fashion and IT courses. We served over 300 pizzas and whenever someone suggested something needed to change or improve, it went on our to do list.





















You're providing free shipping internationally which is quite a surprise. Is it just for the initial push to your venture or do you have any plan to change it?

We were adamant that we should quote one price to customers and not pile on 'extras' at the checkout. It's often the case that an e-commerce company will quote a seeming low headline price to get your attention and then pile on the delivery charges later. We wanted to price our product in a more transparent way. Some feedback we've had is that people want the option to pay for a faster delivery. We're investigating this at the moment.


How many days does this whole process from ordering till delivery take?

We process the majority of orders within 24 hours. We email customers three times throughout the garment creation process with an update to keep them informed.


What if the customer is not happy with the final product, probably because of the quality of the image or design?

Given that each and every SocialWear garment is unique, we insist that the customer approves their design before we print it. Imagining that we sent you the wrong size of t-shirt , for example, we would replace it free of charge. If anyone thought that what we printed didn't resemble what they'd created, we'd happily inspect their shirt and improve on it if we could. To date we have processed thousands of orders and haven't had a complaint yet.


What kind of reception has 'SocialWear' received so far?

A very positive one. People like the idea and the product is proving very popular. We've been approached by fashion brands who want to incorporate our technology into their offer too which confirms that there's a real trend for personalization and fashion.


What was the major difficulty that you faced in the pre-production stage?

Fine tuning the more technical aspects of the design studio.


And now when it's up and running, what is the biggest challenge?

We're brimming with ideas and developments - if only we could code as quick as we think!


Share your fondest memory with 'SocialWear'.

Wearing a very early prototype on a night out and having a stranger come up to me and say 'I like your tee. Where can I get one'. It was then that I know there really was a market for SocialWear.


Do you have any plans to extend the product line?

Absolutely. Watch this space!


One piece of advice you could give yourself when you took the first step to turn your idea into reality?

The chances are it will take longer and cost more than you think!


And a final word for our readers?

Be brave, take risks and ask for help.