The Cold, Hard Truth: A Reflection on Starting a Clothing Brand
Welcome to the hustle generation. The American Dream has moved from insipid tv stories and a socially correct college degree and a stable pension job to a startup app that breaks a billion by prom. The so-called Dream mutated and pollinized the world.
As technology, social media and mobile become embedded in societies, the opportunity and the entrepreneurial spirit flourishes as well.
A lot of people aren’t aiming for a secure and steady career anymore when overnight Internet renegades define the paradigm of success. There’s tons of examples online, but the main question is, why work a stuffy day job for someone else when you can hustle your YouTube or Instagram for influencer dollars?
When I started my own brand months ago, I scoured the web for articles and videos on how to get started. There was some useful content, but most of what I read was a waste of brain space. It was all platitudes and corporate slang instead of actionable advice. Fortunately, I was in the right place at the right time.
Spreadshop gave me a painless free solution that took all the hassle of dealing with all the technicalities and made me focus on what was important: the design and marketing my products.
Fast forward and my brand is still alive. Sure, I’m not huge but I managed to get featured by H&M and I see the fruits of my daily grind start to flourish.
Bear in mind, that I’m not an influencer, and I don’t have a whole mediatic apparatus behind me. Just a modern entrepreneur investing in his side hustle. Imagine what I would achieve if I would have a fan base immediately propelling me to success.
Important to mention that it’s not easy to stand out. Does this mean that starting your own clothing line is a meaningless pursuit? Absolutely not.
Whether you’re an aspiring influencer, an established personality, musician or an illustrator or designer wanting to find another outlet for your work and make cash with not too much effort, t-shirts and the like can be a great income-generator.
Well, enough thinking, here’s my top 3 tips on how to do so with actionable advice.
1- Design and Originality
Of course, before you start selling, you start designing. Create exactly one design for one item of clothing. Keep it simple. It’s almost certain that you’ll have to adapt your style or come up with designs from scratch, but have a solid direction. Try creating something original and different or niche focused, but you want it to be popular and sell well, it’s easier to follow current trends and sacrifice originality. If you can’t design let someone do it for you and focus on the next points.
2- Marketing Your Wares
Now that you have several ideas and designs that you’d love to see printed on clothing, upload them on Spreadshop and customize your products. After that, I still believe that the best marketing technique is word of mouth — it’s the hardest to achieve but it tends to work the best. My best advice is to just talk to people, approach them, ask questions and always be friendly. You’re a hustler. Ask your friends. Ask your family. Ask your online communities. Ask other influencers. Don’t be afraid to ask, but don’t pressure someone into buying if it’s clear they aren’t interested.
Content, content, content. If you’re not in yet, you’re out. Simple as that! In this new age of marketing you can’t neglect the power of social media and how original content can harness success. One can easily interact with a community and push their products/ideas easier than ever. And if you want people to start looking to you, you have to show up. Create content that builds and supports your brand. Capitalize on using social media and see your brand and bank accounts grow.
3- Embody Your Lifestyle
Running a brand is a labor of love. You have to put in work, time, focus and dedication. It’s not going to make you a bundle of money, not yet anyway, so you have to really want to do it. If you’re not passionate about it, it won’t work. Don’t just do it because you think it’s cool or easy to make some quick cash. You put all of your love and passion for it, and you should represent your brand with the same devotion.
See it this way. A couple of years ago, starting up something like this would be an absolute nightmare, but with Spreadshop it’s plain and simple. It’s all at your fingertips. Setting up a store and merchandising is made easy.
But keep in mind that good things take time, so don’t get discouraged if you have not sold out in the first days. Just keep going, hustle hard and don’t give up, because it’s not about the money, it’s about the game.
