How I lost $2,100 in a weekend

So yea. Ouch. But it doesn’t hurt that much because I learned.

Boom. The business model was this; I produce the shirts, I bring the shirts to the event, sell the shirts and we split the profit 60–40 after I break even.

This has worked before for me. I found a guy on LinkedIn and he was having a big Mud running race thingy in Florida. I made 100 shirts and shipped them out to them. They had the event. They put $400 in my PayPal the following weekend. Easy flip. Not a ton of profit but it let me know that the concept of that business model WORKS. If something wont work once on a small scale, than it wont work more than once on a large scale.

Here was the deal. Dia De Los Muertos is the day after Halloween that all of my Latin people turn up. The location of the venue was none other than Coachella. Lets park on that. Coachella averages 20,000 attendees on a slow event. When making an investment that you are not that knowledgable you want to put your capital in with someone who has more capital invested in the venture. When someone books Coachella they already are in the hole $50k + gate. The promoters booked some solid bands in the Latin music industry so that would put them at least another $150k. So lets just be safe to say that with booking the venue, bands, security and permits they were invested a quarter million before they opened the gates. I love that because it shows that they have massive skin in the game. People with skin in the game care more, they try harder, they scratch and claw to make their investment successful, ride their coattails.

So I reached out, made contact and inked a deal that I was the sole provider of the Official Dia De Los Muertos Coachella T-shirt. Good idea? I still believe so. This means that I am the only person with the official concert tee. It is a keepsake, a way to remember the event. If I went to the moon, I would want the T-shirt that they are selling on the moon that nobody else has except for the rest of the people on the moon with me. I said I would print the T-shirts with the logo they provided at no cost. People love this because they get to save money and still provide their fans with a shirt. I love it because it is proactive instead of reactive and waiting for someone to walk in my store and order some shirts. They agreed to the terms and we were a go. I printed the shirts, white tee shirts, full color front only print. It took about 23 total hours to print the 600 shirts on 2 print machines. I used a kid one night for some labor to keep the machines running while I slept. Boom shirts are done, lets roll to Coachella.

Whew Coachella was further than I expected. Took me about 7 hours because I had to pullover 3 times to sleep instead of falling asleep behind the wheel on Interstate 5 and 10. It was an experience setting up and there was another guy selling tee shirts as well. This was disclosed to me before we agreed on the deal. I knew he wouldn’t be competition because he didn’t have Coachella, 2014 or the official logo on his shirts. I set up in a tent with my table and banner. Doors open. Crickets.

Ok so the first day there were 500 people in attendance. Second day there were 700 in attendance. Not the 16k that they had forecasted. I sold 16 tees the first day. 36 the second day. The other vendors were steaming hot! Whew. One vendor said she made $30 the whole weekend and she paid $5000 for her booth and brought over $1000 in inventory. I started off at a price point of $20. If I sold 600 tees at $20 each the gross would be $12k. Love those numbers. A $1800 investment with the possibility of grossing $12k I will take those odds every day. First day I started off at $20 each and sold a couple, went to 2 for $30 and sold some more. Went to a hotel and slept for the night. Came back the second day and was gunslinging them for $10 just trying to recoup costs at least.

There was a vendor going around the the other vendors collecting names and email addresses in petition to get some money back but I told her not to involve me because I see this as becoming something huge in the future and I want to be apart of it. It was their firs stab at this date and location, the ticket prices were a bit steep, there were 4 other similar events in that area going on simultaneously, weather was bad leaving LA on that Friday etc blah blah blah. Excuses help no one, ever. We all took a loss and the concert promoter took the biggest so I can bet that they won’t want to take that loss again.

One thing that I can pat myself on the back about was my ratios. I knew deep down in my gut that 1% of the people who attended would purchase a shirt. I produced 600 shirts because I knew that that was a good minimum number to make it worth the production time and drive, also that would be all that fit in my Kia Soul.

Moral of the story: Don’t be afraid to take a little risk. You will learn, when the negative is far outweighed by the positive and others have more skin in the game, go for it. There is nothing better than deploying your capital into the marketplace, adding value, and bringing home profit when you please. It is great when a customer walks into my store and places a $2k order but what if I could invest and get a return like above in a weekend. I would do it again and am vigorously looking for the opportunity. Still cant stand listening to that mariachi music though. Whew

Let’s learn from my mistakes and better ourselves. Lets win.