How a Few Young Entrepreneurs Started Their Clothing Brands During the Pandemic
Jacob Kostuchowski reports on how two West Coast online clothing businesses opened up their shops during the pandemic, and thrive despite the obstacles they have faced along the way.
Starting Up
Francisco Moreno, 19, is a business major at the University of Nevada, Reno who recently opened up his own online clothing business called AnimeGalore. The concept for this came to him around November 2021 because he was always looking for merchandise from his favorite anime series, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, and could never find a design he liked. So he decided to create his own.
“I was just planning on making me and my other friend some shirts,” Moreno said. “But then I posted on TikTok, I got like 300 views, but maybe 10 people were like, ‘Oh that’s so sick, where did you get that?’ And for me, 300 people out of that, like 10 people saying that they want to [make shirts], if you scale that up that’s a lot of people are gonna want it.”
According to the Census Bureau in 2021 there were over 5.4 million new business applications sent out which is about 53% more than in 2019, pre-pandemic. This surge of new businesses has been an interesting shift especially in the online market sphere.
Jacob Allen, 21, a graphic design major at California State University, Sacramento has been running his own online clothing brand since May 2020 called Momoyao. It was not his first venture into the clothing scene though because from around 2016–2017 he had another brand called Vessel but that was a smaller scale, more private brand.
Allen started Momoyao with commissions through his Instagram account, and when more people started ordering he found that this might be something he would continue.
“I remember my friend at the time, he was like ‘that is really cool like I would buy that’ and I said would you?” Allen said. “Like shoot, maybe I should start making stuff again.”
Covid Causing Issues
The pandemic has created a multitude of issues for businesses when it comes to means of production. One of the biggest of these are the disruptions in the supply chain. Issues with wholesale material as well as shipping delays are only a fraction of the issues businesses have had to deal with. It has been reported that delivery days of products have gone up significantly as well as the pricing of the shipping of these materials.
Moreno and Allen have been lucky with their productions for the most part though, only having a few bumps in the road of their productions. Allen has had to deal with a few of these issues himself, such as receiving needed hoodies in five days rather than a day or two.
“Printing issues can happen, that was the biggest one and then supply chain issues as well, just like getting your wholesale product in time can be stressful because you don’t know if you know if you’re going to get it in time,” Allen said.
Since Moreno’s brand is still quite new he has only had one official drop of merchandise thus far. He has felt the last effects of the supply issues the pandemic brought with it, that a lot of other businesses have had to face as well.
“The shipping times are WAY longer, which is not good, obviously. But, I mean, what can you do? You know, I just again, I’m transparent with you guys,” Moreno said. “The turnaround rate is 14 to 16 days. And then I’m going to ship them which is going to be another one to four days. So like you’re probably going to get it and then I set like a pretty wide just room for error.”
With delays like these both Moreno and Allen find it to be extremely important to be open and transparent with their customers. And the best way to go about that is through social media.
Importance of Social Media
Businesses found an extreme importance in having a social media presence and one of the most lucrative of these platforms is TikTok. The video platforming service exploded in popularity during the peak of the pandemic, and this allowed businesses to reach a wider audience.
This is exactly what Moreno has done. He created his page, anime.s.galore, in January of 2022. It has already amassed 16.3k followers as of the writing of this article. He uses it as a space to be open with his followers and keep them all updated on the process of making the shirts.
“TikTok is the best way to market your stuff right now. You just need one video to get like 100,000 views, which is not that much like that. It goes viral so fast,” Moreno said. “I want to put more of myself in there. And that would also help me branch out later into other things. Because like, if you have a following, you could literally do anything.”
Allen knows about the power of TikTok, but has not tapped into that well as of yet. One of his social media strategies has been doing free giveaways to his followers.
“I would just do a bunch of giveaways and just be like retweet this, if you like it and then maybe you’ll win one,” Allen said. “It helps me and it gives you a chance to possibly win something and then plus It shows my stuff to other people that might want it on your feed. And then they might follow and retweet it and then their friends might follow and retweet.”
A Twitter post from Momoyao’s most recent giveaway campaign.
A Silver Lining for Businesses
All of our shopping habits have drastically changed from the start of the pandemic. There is a stronger reliance on online shopping than ever before, which has been a positive for independent online markets.
This boom of online marketplaces has allowed Allen to create a sustainable income for himself and for his business. He is comfortable with keeping the heart of his current brand as more of a passion project though.
“I’m not trying to become like a huge brand I’m not trying to be like this huge like monolith that just like terrorizes other brands,” Allen said. “Like I’m just trying to exist, you know and, if I can make money where I could I could live off of then you know I’m happy.”
Moreno has seen the boom of online shopping for himself. And he has seen how valuable being able to create your own niche within the market is.
“I think right now is the perfect time to start a business because, if you make something and you say, I would actually legitimately buy this for money, then other people are gonna want to buy it too,” Moreno said. “People don’t really want to go to stores anymore. GrubHub, DoorDash, everything people are getting their foods delivered to them, groceries delivered to them.”
It’s hard to know whether or not Moreno will have sustainability with his brand since it is so new, but the numbers are definitely looking promising for him. Within just his first drop he sold 678 units making himself around $15,000. He does plan to reinvest this money into his brand to make it even better for his customers.
