Spec Shop is ecommerce as art practice — an online store for absurdist experiments, primarily of a collaborative nature.

It is a shop where you pay in vibes or blessings (but also cold hard cash). A shop where the products are esoteric, possibly imaginary.

We sell digital delights and diversions. We transact websites and emails. We purvey spreadsheets and files. We are merchants of lists; peddlers of virtual surprises.

…a spectacular spectrum of speculative specimens…

We subvert sales and storefronts; we transmute transaction; we commoditize curiosities and confound consumer and consumed.

All products are collaborative; proceeds are split 50/50. All products are small, simple, subversive, superb. All sales are final.

…gyres of gift exchange, rhythms of reciprocity, murmurs of mutualism…

doable in a few hours

or at most, a few days!

could be an evening or two (together), or an hour here and there across a few weeks (async)

more or less a single sprint, so we can keep it casual and ship quickly without losing momentum

tiny but high quality

narrow scope to one interesting thing + execute well!

staying small / light is part of the fun; not too complex, more about a fun twist or new lens

playful + positive

things that are silly, strange, or subvert expectation around digital products / commerce…

but I want to balance that with making real things: interesting, novel, exploratory, unique

better together

things best done with complementary skill sets

I like the idea of all products being a 50/50 split, whether it's your idea and I'm helping execute or vice versa

commerce is core

not only fun, but shaped like a product — at least plausibly a valuable thing we exchange for money

a strange small storefront, but…a storefront indeed!

we should have fun without financial expectation, but promote each product as a thing we care about selling

for and of the internet

light sketches; I can expand on all these further!

creative prompts or recipes

maybe a set of a few, on a theme

could send by email, one a day for a week

guided reading list

or a close reading of a book or essay

or bibliomancy: pick a special book you should read based on your all time faves, recent reads, and more…

another that could be dripped by email

event templates

a little digital kit / guide to hosting a particular event

the more niche the better, probably

pop-up social space

temporary access to some kind of (unexpected, virtual) shared social space…a spreadsheet, say

could have a maximum (or min) number of participants, or run multiple times with different themes

private photo feed

a little newsletter of all photos we take of sunrises this week, for example

perhaps a bespoke option, for an assignment / commission

hypothetical project ideas

What might this look like in practice? I'm not 100% sure but maybe…

We bounce around ideas, maybe a variant from the above list or something you've been exploring that feels like the right size and shape! We spend some time scoping down what we want to make in detail. Maybe we start with the product listing and work backwards.

We set a time to make it, which could be via video chat, or coffee/breakfast in Brooklyn. I think one shot to get the bulk of it completed is ideal, maybe a followup or two for iterating and polish.

One example:

We design a set of zip files to send out by email, one per week

Each zip file contains an image and PDF pairing; they all circle around a common theme…a vibey week-long file tasting menu

ORRR:

We make a syllabus, but out of experiences, not readings, and present it not as an ordinary document but as a ballad that we record and upload to YouTube and send you the link…

ORRRRRRR:

Endless possibilities…hopefully you get the idea! While we'll deliver something concrete, a lot of the fun is conceptual :)

Our collaborative roles may vary depending on the project and our skills and interests…maybe I'm more director and you're more producer, or vice versa.

My goal would be over a couple hours we quickly sketch out the core of the product, split up work, and get a draft done. We also spend some time drafting the product listing along with any emails or other assets needed to get it ready to launch.

Then we make a list of remaining things to do or improve, schedule time as needed, revise, and tie up loose ends…

I've lately spent some time exploring Metalabel, and I like a lot of things about the platform:

nice simple way to list / showcase work, and for people to easily buy variations ("editions", up to 5 per release)

I dig the ethos of creativity and taking the "release" seriously — making creative work feel special and putting it out in the world in a concrete intentional way, and the full process this entails

it's new and fresh and cool, with nice design and attention to detail (from branding to how the product works)

framed around the "label" structure (creative publishers, solo or collaborative) which fits the goals of this project ncely

easy way to add collaborators, and set it up per-product to automatically split revenue (they take 10% + Stripe fees)

support for many product types: "…physical work, digital work, tickets, experiences, tokens of appreciation, free collectibles to celebrate moments, bundles of any or all of the above…"

Here's a list of the basic things we need for each release:

Product details: title, summary, square cover art, long description, and some optional metadata

Gallery: images/videos, and optional "notes" with text/links

What's included: up to 5 editions, each with a title, set of items (physical or digital, with title/description/image), and some options for quantity, pricing, and shipping

Beyond that, just have to specify the contributors for each release (you and me!) and how to split revenue (assuming two equal collaborators, this will be 50/50).

Some further reading if you're curious!

The Metalabel Guide