chari-t-shirt | kind and good
31 startups launched over 31 days, 90 days to cashflow positive
Day 11: chari-t-shirt
Limited edition well designed t-shirts for positive social change
Launch Journal day 11 of 31
31 startups | 90 days to cashflow positive | do good | podcast | community
Well, I tried to get the domain “Full of Shirt” for this startup, but that one was gone. Not to worry, there’s a world of great domains out there.
My good friend Ray King runs Top Level Design, and they manage the tld’s .design, .ink, and .wiki. (and .gay, which needs to updated on that Wikipedia page, anybody?). I digress, but that’s the way it goes. I first met Ray in 1999/2000 when we made the trip from NYC, and a few of us met on the Oregon coast for a weekend drinking, eating, and trying to decide if the SnapNames concept was a business model or just a feature?
Indeed, SnapNames created the entire secondary domain marketplace AND, through untold hard work and against all odds, ran the biz thru post 9/11 with no cash. My wife and I were original investors, and I was on the board for the first couple of years. SnapNames was generating gross sales of $49 million. The company sold to California-based Oversee.net in 2007 for $30 million. Ray, his wife Daneen, and their daughter Dakota are just wonderful people, which is just a very good thing overall and for Oregon.
Let’s get back to t-shirts. I’ve long been intrigued by the idea of using t-shirts and media. Wearing your message on your sleeve, so to speak. So many nonprofit organizations have shirts available, and the design is simply their logo on some lesser than brand of shirt blanks.
Well, let’s make this a design-driven process. Let’s make a design that visually fits a cause, idea, program, and find a nonprofit to “partner with” at the same time. By partner with, I mean, you get XX% of the gross sales. Not, you get to input ideas regarding the design; we already know that is great.
You ask, aren’t t-shirts a rinky-dink business? The global custom t-shirt market size is expected to reach USD 6.9 billion by 2027. I’m good with those numbers.
So, I got an email from Trevor Reed this morning, and he asked (and yes, he said I could share this):
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I feel like a dumbass here, am I missing some information.
I click on the link, and it takes me to the Linkedin one-pager.
And the website is sparse.
There appears to be no ask here?
thx for your help in advance
Trev
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Hello Trevor
It’s definitely not you, it’s me. It’s how I’ve launched startups since 1989.
I basically get the idea out in the air, then get feedback, connections, and next steps from there.
Perhaps I should try to include that at the end of each launch article.
What do you think?
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Yes, and a way to contact others that are following.
Thx Trev.
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Thnx Trevor, I’ll add a call to action of some sort in today’s launch (and try to add to the previous ten days in LinkedIn and Medium).
I’ll do what I can to set up a way for people to connect too…today…tomorrow…I hope…soon…this week
Thank you, Trevor
So, here’s the deal, Gang of 31 (31 Startup email members) have been asking for a place to talk to one another about the 31 things I’m launching here. Marshall Kirkpatrick suggested using Discourse, which I’ve heard of, but never seen in action. Marshall is one of those people who, when they make a recommendation or connection, you just damn well do it. You know it’s going to be good. And Trev, I’ll have an ask or a next step(s) here. I just need to think it up.
Chari-t-shirt Next Steps: Find some great, interesting, nonprofits doing great work. Get a fantastic designer on board (I think I have the first one) — design 1–3 things covering 1–3 areas of focus. Build a one-page web site that points probably to Kickstarter, Indiegogo, to run the crowdfunding for the first effort, and include money in the COGS to use a dropshipping company. If I personally have to stuff shirts into packages and do a mail drop, I’ll punch myself in the nuts, seriously.
Online community coming soon.
So if you’d like to follow the chari-t-shirt journey, please go to 31startups.com and sign up to follow along.
31 startups | 90 days to cashflow positive | do good | podcast | community
