About Us

Yerzies really isn't about us, it's about you. We believe in the power of ordinary people to create extraordinary things. We take capabilities that are normally available only to big-wigs at major companies and make them available to anyone who can access the internet. Not only can you create your own products and purchase as little as one piece, you can also sell your work to others - set your own prices and keep the profits. If that wasn't enough, you also decide which of these user-created designs are cool enough to be in our store. You're in charge of product development, marketing and merchandising. Our job is to give you the tools to make it happen.

- Scott Killian & Tim Brule, Founders

Our Story

Before Yerzies, we earned over a decade of experience in e-commerce and mass customization when we launched FanBuzz way back in 1996. The company built and operated private labeled online stores for sports, media and entertainment brands including ESPN, the National Hockey League, Elvis Presley Enterprises, The Winter Olympics, The Walt Disney Company and many other prominent brands. In addition to developing online stores, FanBuzz was also responsible for assortment planning, merchandising, marketing, customer service and fulfillment. In 1999, the company launched CustomFan - the first example of mass customization in the licensed apparel industry. CustomFan allowed fans to customize their own team and league licensed apparel. The resulting products were manufactured on-demand using a set of proprietary processes we developed. After two rounds of private equity financing totaling $10 million, FanBuzz was successfully sold in 2002 to the television shopping network ShopNBC (NASDAQ: VVTV).

After selling FanBuzz and reflecting on that experience, neither of us could get CustomFan and the concept of mass customization in general out of our heads. We reunited in 2005 to launch DemandMade, a company initially focused on helping manufacturers transition from mass production to mass customization and fulfillment. We felt that domestic manufacturers in selected product categories could experience a renaissance of sorts by embracing highly customized one-off production and fulfillment as a value-added service - particularly to online retailers. Our first-hand experience developing a sophisticated production environment for mass customized apparel gave us real-world experience in what it takes to develop and scale these kinds of programs. We began by developing a Web based platform to support facilities in componentizing and process flow automation and followed it up with a Gateway application for online retailers who want to access these factories to produce and fulfill one-off products. After several successful factory installations, we realized that we could extend this extraordinary power to anyone with a web browser. The result is Yerzies.

Everything we've learned over the years from supporting huge brands like the Walt Disney Company and Sports Illustrated is now available to you. In the meantime, if you can think of a way we can make Yerzies better, we'd like to hear from you.

Make it Yerz!