Why my t-shirt business failed
This is a look back at the time I tried to start a T-shirt business in my early 20s, around 10 years ago, and not long after I’d moved to London. But more broadly it’s a look at why strategy is so important.
In the book ‘Playing to Win’ by A.G. Lafley and Roger Martin, the authors outline a framework and process for strategy. It’s a simple but powerful approach that I’ve adopted it in my own work and recommended reading more about it if you haven’t already. Essentially, they look at strategy as the choices you make to give your business the best chance of winning.
I’ve always wanted to start my own thing - a record label, a DJ agency, a sandwich shop, the list goes on. The inspiration for starting a T-shirt business came in in 2011, when I was running a record label. I got some shirts printed with the label’s logo to give to our artists and friends. We did sell a few but it was mainly for promotion. I enjoyed everything that went with getting the shirts made for the record label and with £500 (pretty much my life savings at the time) I decided to set up my own business selling printed T-shirts.
The following five points are things I learned and/or would do differently if I was doing it again. You could look at this as advice to my younger self.
Understand your audience.
The record label I managed had a few diehard fans that bought the label logo shirts. However the shirts I designed didn’t relate to the record label, nor were they supposed to, but this meant I was launching a new product without an existing audience - into a super crowded market. I was naive, most of the choices I made were based on what I wanted to do. I should’ve focused on learning more about my potential customers. My friends were supportive of my idea and wore the T-shirts, but I should’ve tested the designs with a broader audience of people I didn’t know.Don’t buy a load of stock up front.
I made the mistake of investing most of my money into two T-shirts designs I liked that I hadn’t really gathered any feedback on, least of all from my target audience. To be honest I had really thought about a target audience all that much. I could’ve got a few samples made or even mocked some up using photoshop and saved the majority of my budget. One thing I could’ve done differently is a pre-sales model to gather interest and cover costs before any production (a bit like Everpress).Be creative!
Even if I hadn’t invested most of my budget in stock, it would’ve been a tough ask to fund any sort of traditional marketing with £500. I should’ve focused on low-cost, high-impact things such as organic audience building, forming partnerships with other brands or leveraging people with bigger audiences by asking them to wear a shirt. This would mean being creative, coming up with ideas and activities to build attention and get people talking without spending much money. Easier said than done!Make the best quality product you can.
I should’ve made a t-shirt that people would ask the wearer about. And the person wearing my shirt should want to show it off to everyone they meet. That could be little unusual details or the quality of materials. It could’ve been getting a graphic designer or guest artist to do some designs. Instead I ended up a little more towards quantity rather than quality. And with a relatively small budget that doesn’t balance well. This probably was a result of me being more focused on having a product to sell rather than selling it. If I was to start again, I’d visit different suppliers, get multiple samples and try to do as much as possible to create a quality product (see point 2).Plan to put in a lot of hard work, for a long time, and don’t give up.
I only had £500 and 2011 isn’t long enough ago for that to be worth much more than it is now. In hindsight it probably was nowhere near enough money to do what I wanted to do - maybe one point should be ‘get a bigger budget!’ I think this is probably the most important point, it takes a long time to build a business and I should’ve planned to work hard for at least 6 months, if not a year, before properly launching my T-shirts. In the end my motivation sort of fizzled out. I’d like to say I look at it as £500 well spent based on the things I learned - but I’m kidding myself. I should’ve pushed a lot harder and not given up so easily. I only managed to bring myself to donate the remaining T-shirts to a charity shop last year.
While writing this post it became clear that the reason I failed was due to making the wrong choices. I didn’t have a clear strategy focused on understanding and answering a clear need or want of a specific type of customer. I based decisions on my own wants when I should’ve been focused on potential customers.
Essentially, I think I liked the idea of having a successful company, not the reality of the hard work and commitment needed to build a following and convince people to buy. It taught me a lot about self motivation. You can do whatever you want but you have to put the work in to stand any chance of success. Unless you’re very lucky, success isn’t just going to find you. That means making tough choices that are focused on how to win.
A side note - as I was doing most of the work in the evenings after I’d finished my day job, I decided to call the company LateOne.
‘Blondie’
This was the first of two designs I had printed. It’s a pixellated and colourised version of a photo of Debbie Harry. (If I’d have made any money from this one, I probably would’ve got a letter in the post!)
