Spreadshirt CEO steps down as economy hits sales

The CEO of T-shirt customisation startup Spreadshirt has stepped down amid difficult financial performance of the company and a tough economy for items like customised T-shirts. Jana Eggers had spent the last four years at Spreadshirt, the Germany-based startup which crowd-sources t-shirt designs, three of them as as CEO. Eggers posted the news on the Spreadshirt blog, but didn’t give a reason, according to local startup blog Gruenderszene.

Spreadshirt is a platform for design-your-own clothing and print-on-demand and is considered to be one of the pioneers in this space in the German market.

Started in 2001 by Lukasz Gadowski, now founding partner of the Team Europe Ventures investment vehicle, Spreadshirt has employed up to 300 people at it peak but in November last year it started to cut jobs after struggling to hit its targets for the financial year.

Eggers says “In the field of personalised clothing and print-on-demand, Spreadshirt will continue to develop significantly” but clearly that future will be without her.

In February last year Spreadshirt closed a €10m investment from Accel and Kennet Partners, taking it’s total investment to €18m, but a slow economy is clearly affecting sales. Under those circumstances heads tend to roll.

There is a plan to replace Eggers but there’s just no immediate interim CEO while they go through that.