My first shirt I did wasn’t bad. It was just a one color shirt I did for my missing turtle shirt. Building my own screen press and learning how to screen print really made me appreciate all the work that a screen printer does. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do anything more complicated then 1 color prints so I went out to find a screen printer.

I started making some money on my first shirt so I decided to print my second shirt. It was a line from 30 rock that said “Live every week like it’s shark week”. I did my research and went with a company I thought was reputable. I printed 100 shirts which looking back was a bad decision. Any new shirt you want to print the minimums and use that information to know what sizes sell or even if that design is a good seller. I talk about it more in the article “How many shirts should I print”.

The shirts turned out terrible. The printer was nice enough to reprint the shirts for free but it was still hard for me to trust a printer. The next printer I chose was much better and I was 90% satisfied. I say 90% because they didn’t have the best communication with me and sometimes left me in the dark. Also sometimes the ink would turn out thicker then I wanted or the colors didn’t match up perfectly. He was a great printer but I knew things could be better.

The third printer I found when I was starting up Shred a year ago. They sent me digital proofs of the designs on a shirt and their service and quality has just been amazing. They were so awesome I decided to become a sales rep for them. They are called Storenvy and you can check them out online at storenvy.com. Send me any questions or orders and I can walk you through the process jonkruse@storenvy.com (it just goes to my jon@doubledragonstudios account for now). Besides being on the ball with their service they also have printed some amazing shirts for my clothing companies. They were able to print some 9 color oversized prints and make them still feel soft. I am going to do some articles with the screen printer over there and get you guys some more information about storenvy and the printing process in general.

Back to starting out… I could have just given up after the first bad batch of shark week shirts and my story could have ended but I pushed through. After a couple month ordeal they reprinted the shirts just in time for Shark Week. I sold around 30 shirts that first weekend, it was awesome. Shark week is still my best selling design and this last Shark Week season I sold 150 of them during the week. I was pumped. It was very much like winning a big pot in poker, my adrenaline was rushing and I knew I could make a living out of this.

My next step of letting go and delegating work was hiring other artists. I am not a great artist, I did the Shark week, Missing Turtle, and Complimentary Colors shirts and as you can tell they are all very simple. I found great artists through emptees.com and always pushed their work to be as great as it could be. This made a big difference in my company, the shirts that I was making were awesome and there wasn’t anything getting in the way anymore. Just because I couldn’t do something didn’t mean it was impossible it just meant I had to find someone that was great at it and hire them.

When I deal with artists or my partner Jordan Andree at double dragon studios I try my best to communicate the best that I can. With shirts I usually mark up the changes in photoshop with notes so the designer clearly know what I am talking about. The same goes for Jordan, when I need him to make changes in a site I pick my words very carefully so he knows what I am talking about and will sometimes include pictures. My girlfriend always says I am very direct and and can be overwhelming for some people. It is very true, but I need to be direct and tell people exactly what I if I expect them to do it. A few words of encouragment always goes a long way to.

The parts of the business that I have been focusing on are e-commerce development, internet marketing, and product development. What everyone should do is find what they are best at then hire out help to fill in everything else. You will have a lot more well rounded company and make more money that way. Also the goal with every business is to have be self sufficient. You want to hire creative directors in charge of designs, a marketing director, president, you want to get the best of everything and be able to walk away from your company for a year and see it making even more money when you return. It’s hard to think that I will ever be able to do that but for now I am taking steps towards that goal. These are my first businesses and they are all a huge learning experience for me.

Let me know what you think of this post. It was a lot less on point and had more of my personal story. Do you think this is better or worse then just writing down the facts.?

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Stop trying to do it all and delegate

http://www.facebook.com/pages/How-to-start-a-clothing-company/333842945937

Also does there have to be that long number there for the link? it doesn’t seem necessary but it doesn’t work without it.

I’ve got more stuff in store for this site in the future to create a community instead of just a blog.

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We are on Facebook!

What I see is most of the traffic comming from are simple google searches with the clothing companies name. So most of their traffic comes from people seeing their brand in stores and then searching them on the internet. This is one of the reasons why I think tags are very important to be well designed and have your internet address on them. They won’t always make the purchase at that store and might go online and order directly from you.

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Sometimes you don’t need Internet Marketing

You will also see a feedback button on the left side of the site. I really want to know what you guys think about the site so this will make it a lot easier.

I have also been toying with the idea of doing a forum but I feel like I don’t have the following yet to have a successful forum. I think it might just be a good way for people to post questions and get answers but I really want to make sure the posts content are all quality. I just fear it will turn out to be like t-shirt forums where a lot of the posters are misinformed and not posting from experience. Let me know what you guys think of this idea.

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New Comment System + Feedback System

What I’m real confused about is the printing method. I’m just about to have a real small launch and I don’t do ANY designs. I’ve hired an artist to do my designs, but if I’m not mistaken he has to do them a certain way for it to be able to be printed. So my first question is, What exactly are the guidelines I need to give to my artist.

My second question is once I get the artwork, What are the steps I have to take with my printer for setting up artwork for screen printing? Do I have to buy the brand of shirts I want myself and tell them the colors to print the shirts on? And should I go with a local printer or have it done online?

Thanks Ray for the info,
Jenny K. The Up-and-Comer : )

Setting up artwork for screen printing: File Type

Hey, glad you like my brand. Here is my advice; it probably varies from printer to printer, but from the 3-4 printers I’ve worked with in the past, this is the method I’ve used that usually works.

First of all, it depends if you’re working in Photoshop (raster) or Illustrator (vector). Vector’s are scalable to any size, so in the case of vector images, all you really have to do is specify the color and the size of the print on the shirt. I’ve learned that it’s always a good idea to show a mock-up image of a t-shirt so that the printer has a pretty good idea of how large the print should be.

In the case that it’s a raster image (ie. done in Photoshop), you would need to have the file of at least the size of your print (ie. 16″ x 24″ or whatever) and have it at 300dpi. The dpi is very important because if you don’t have it at 300, it’ll most likely come out blurry. 300dpi is usually for print and 72dpi is usually for web, so if you receive a file at 72dpi, tell your artist that it’s wrong!

Setting up artwork for screen printing: Preparing the file for Print

If you have an experienced artist, he or she should probably separate the colors for you, but if it’s not separated, your printer should be able to handle it. In terms of colors, the best way to get the most accurate colors is by using a pantone color book. A pantone color book is a special book that most, if not all printers use that have the same exact color swatches. That way, even if the design’s colors may look different from monitor to monitor, if you have it properly labelled with the pantone number, there should be no mess ups.

Note from Jon Kruse:

Many printers don’t want the files separated. Good printers will know the best way to separate the files and many designers don’t have the training to do this. Contact your printer! I would suggest Storenvy, tell em Jon Kruse sent you and they’ll hook you up.

It also varies from printer to printer if you need to buy the blank shirts or not, but I personally like buying the shirts myself. That way, you can buy samples to see which blank is the best for your brand. Also, some printers tend to mark up the price of the blank to get a cut of profit off of that, so you should be careful about that.

Local versus outsourcing is always a debate as well. I currently work with a local printer and I love it, because I get to see samples and stuff in person, and it cuts out the shipping cost as well. However, I’m pretty fortunate that I have a great printer nearby, but there may not be good local printers in your area. In the case of that, outsourcing to well accredited places would be ideal.

Note from Jon Kruse:

From my experience a lot of local printers are just that, local printers. They print shirts for schools and churchs but when it comes to doing a 9 color print on black and making it super soft it would be fairly difficult to find a local printer that can do this. I haven’t had very many problems getting my shirts printed in another state. I try and get all my designers to send in pantones but even when an artist doesn’t do this I have enough faith in my printer that they will chose colors that go with the design.

Hope that helps, thanks for your questions.

Post from: How to start a Clothing Company

how to set up artwork for screen printing

I remember printing my first shirt, live every week like it’s shark week, and I was asking the same question. I asked people what sizes I should order and I also unwisely asked what size people wanted to buy. I say unwisely because I asked it on emptees and not everyone that answered was my market or would be my customer.

It isn’t as simple as someone telling you how many shirts to buy. It depends on your market the design and a lot of factors that are really hard to calculate when you are buying your first print.

TEST THE WATERS!

I recommend buying the minimums. Most times this is 36-50 shirts sometimes even lower. The worst thing you can do is order shirt sizes that don’t sell and you have tons of stock left. Whatever you do don’t print more shirts because you get a discount. When you have the customers and know the sizes they order this is fine but it is disastrous if it’s your first time printing.

Do the research

I think your best bet is to talk to similar clothing companies. A lot of them might not respond but a lot of it is how you talk to them. Talk about how you like their clothing line, how you are printing your first shirt and don’t know what to get, how you are doing something similar and want their expertise, and I think most importantly give them a reason to help you. I send out shirts to a lot of people that have helped me and it’s always great to get gifts. Make them want to help you!

1-2-2-1

This is a breakdown of small to extra large that a lot of people use. They get twice as many mediums and larges as smalls and xl’s. I find that what I sell is usually more on the smaller side so I get more smalls and mediums, and less larges and xl’s then this breakdown. Really every market is different so you have to test and use your data to reorder.

Another thing is I always like to order 1 or 2 2XL’s or x-small. These don’t sell very well but your customer will appreciate you for carrying their size.

Post from: How to start a Clothing Company

How many shirts should I print?!

Fail Fast, Fail Cheap
Get your idea into the marketplace, and learn from customers

by Doug Hall

The development of a successful new product, service, or business is often the result of lots of learning from lots of failures. The key is to fail fast and fail cheap.

The classic mindset is to try to get a business plan or product 95% right before taking action. This is great in theory, but it rarely works. Why? Because as soon as you ship the product you immediately recognize its fatal flaws. By then, it’s often too late to

change the packaging, the marketing, or the product itself.

The alternative is to get your idea about 50% right, then let customers tell you what your mistakes are. Listen, learn, get it 50% right, and put your idea through the process again. Keep at it until your customers say, “Wow!” Instead of debating options internally, you’ll be making your idea real, taking it to customers, and learning as it fails.

You can make an idea real by producing a “looks like” or “works like” prototype and showing it to customers. A “looks like” prototype can be as simple as a fact sheet or a sales letter e-mailed to friends or potential buyers. “Works like” prototypes are demonstrations. They don’t have to be pretty. They just need to show the overt benefit you are promising.

The power of a “works like” prototype can be immense. I observed this recently in the boardroom of an industrial products company. A young engineer demonstrated how his prototype could cut the noise level of the company’s equipment by 70%. The prototype was made from duct tape and other materials from a hardware store. But it was effective enough to win funding for its development. Thanks to that idea, the company is projecting 20% sales growth this year.

I am not encouraging you to fail. Rather, I am stating the fundamental truth that you can’t know the answers before you start. It’s foolish to assume you know things that it’s not possible to know.

We preach to our children the need to pick themselves up and try again and again when they fail. But we rarely live by our own preaching, continuing to view failure as a statement of our self-worth. And while we may complain about how long it takes to move ideas through our companies, we inspect and edit with gusto whenever a new idea passes through our finance, marketing, or legal departments.

Over the years we’ve failed fast and cheap on behalf of clients in restaurants, at medical trade shows, in convenience stores, in malls, and at conventions. And I don’t just promote the virtues of failing fast and cheap to clients; I do it myself. When I was thinking about entering the training business, I rented two booth spaces at a major industry trade show. Each was completely different, with different brand names, product offerings, and pricing. The “right” answer ended up to be a combination of ideas from each.

The math of fail fast and fail cheap is simple. If it takes six months and $100,000 to take a product from idea to customer reaction, then at best you’ll get two cycles in a year. However, if you can do a complete cycle of learning in a week for $1,000, you can get 52 cycles in a year at about half the cost.

The only barrier to failing fast and failing cheap is your ego. You must be willing to fail, fail, and fail again if you are going to win in today’s competitive marketplace. Remember, even if you’re falling flat on your face, at least you’re still moving forward.

You really just have to put yourself out there and be willing to change. Saying no failure is the same as saying no to success.

Post from: How to start a Clothing Company

Fail Fast, it’s the quickest way to succeed

I was very pleased to be able to interview the seriously cool and visionary dude behind Glamour Kills,  Mark Capicotto. He has done amazing things with his brand and the success he is now enjoying should ignite the spirit and desire in all fledgling tshirt designers and fashion entrepreneurs! It can be achieved! Glamour Kills have just put out their summer line and it is immense! So enjoy the interview below and have a look at just a very select cross-s3ection of the new threads available!

GK Summer Line 2009!

There are a lot of bold tshirt brands out there now, treading a similar line to you, how do you keep innovating, competing and leading the way?
Glamour Kills: I always try to keep glamour kills doing something different, thats why i started the company. and with our popularity its spawns alot of companies trying to do the same thing and now we have to set the new trend. Right now im changing our style up drastically without losing the glamour kills feel. we want to appeal to more than just one type of person.

What inspired the new summer line?
Glamour Kills: Music, i mean music and design are my two passions and they go hand and hand for me. It sounds cliche but i draw all my inspritaion from there….well maybe a little from perez hilton.

GK Bikinis

I see you are broadening your line more and more, the addition of boardshorts/bikinis is really cool, did you ever imagine going beyond printing just tshirts when you first started and how does it feel to be producing nearly everything a human can wear?
Glamour Kills: It’s surreal when I first started I wanted to do all of these things but didnt know how, just t-shirts. as the company grew and the knowledge of the business grew it became easier. Im still wanting to do more (be on the look out for shoes backpacks hats soon but its really surreal to see people wearing the stuff i still get all giddy when i see someone in the mall wearing something.

GK Board Shorts

What is your favourite designs from the summer line and why? (did you design it and if not who did?)
Glamour Kills: Well the summer line is the first line where i didnt design 100% of everything myself. As the company has grown it is difficult for me to do everything. But i work with a select few designers who help take our vision to life. Id have to say my favorite tee of the summer line is the space odyssey shirt (pictured below!) i dont know what it is, i wear that thing everywhere.

GK Space Odyssey Tshirt

How far ahead do you work on your seasonal lines and what is good and bad about this approach?
Glamour Kills: We are just wrapping up our fall line now its good to be prepared and have plenty of time before the release but its hard to design for that far in advance its summer right now so i wanna make summer shirts but i cant cause its for the fall haha. But we are hoping to get cracking on the winter stuff soon so its done before summer is over.

When you launched, did you know where you wanted to position yourselves as a brand and how did you go about making it happen?
Glamour Kills: I really didnt when i started I just wanted people to wear my stuff i didnt care who. The music industry was something i knew pretty well so going that route for the brand made sence for me. But the music skate scene is where we fit best and i love being here.

GK Rad Tshirt

What have been your biggest high points and lowest lows since starting the brand?
Glamour Kills: Some high points were being picked up nationally by a major retailer as well as overseas.
As well as seeing my stuff everywhere its a great felling. I wouldnt say ive had any lows, everything is great.

What is the next big move for Glamour Kills?
Glamour Kills: We are opening up some stores across the country early next year as well as a tonne of other stuff that i cant disclose just yet. but soon!

A HUGE thank you to Mark for his time and great responses! The Glamour Kills summer line is out now and available to view and buy on www.glamourkills.com

Post from: How to start a Clothing Company

Glamour Kills Interview

I’m going to have

• Eric Terry from Linty Fresh
• Ben from Fright Rags
• John and Michael Paul from Fuzzy Ink
• David Murray from SEIBEI
• Ray from Lowdtown Friends & Freaks
• Jorge from Stereo Bear
• Jon Kruse from Shred and Mediocore Clothing
• Tim from Assault Shirts

Please look at their sites and come up with some questions

Just post your questions in a comment below. Subscribe to our rss feed so you don’t miss the asnwers

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Ask top store owners questions about anything!

If I don’t know you I will be skeptical and look at a few things that will let me know if you are full of shit : )

Alexa Ranking

Go to www.alexa.com and pull up their site. I’ve run a bunch of different sites so I know how much traffic a site is getting compared to what their alexa ranking is. For example the ranking of this site is 235,304. I get 18k in visitors every month.  Around 1-2 million in ranking will be a couple thousand hits. Also look at the traffic Rank for 7 day and 1 month. If they are a new site it will take a while for their 3 month average to go up but they could be getting amazing traffic right now.

Page Rank

Google uses it to tell how much value to place on your site and I use it the same way. Page rank is calculated by google and gives you a rating from 0-10 depending on how many link backs you have. So if you have a 2 or below I know you aren’t linked to a lot of websites.

This really gets me a good overview on how well a company is doing. Sometimes they run on subdomains, like if they have a bigcartel store, and alexa just calculates the ranking for bigcartel.com and not the actual store. By the way, you can have your own domain on bigcartel by using cnames. So now you are equipt with a bullshit detector, use it wisely.

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Bullshit Detector – for websites