How To Launch Your T-shirt Brand In 2020 - DEVIN LARS

all right super excited to have you guys here with me been getting a lot of questions about how to start and build a clothing brand right how to build a t-shirt brand from the ground up and so I wanted to talk a little bit about this program that we put together called the brand lunch so in this webinar what you're gonna learn is basically how to launch your first product and build your t-shirt brand from the ground up now who is this webinar for anyone that wants to start a t-shirt brand right maybe you want to start a side hustle get some extra income maybe you are aspiring entrepreneur maybe you're a graphic designer maybe are already an entrepreneur or some sort of creative that's what this webinar is for now a lot of you guys may not know who I am my name is Devin Lars and for the past 15 years I have been helping building brands and helping them grow now I run an agency called curio based out of Oakland California where we help our clients connect with their audience on an offline so online through digital marketing advertising how to basically take your current clientele and grow it and to be able to establish relationships with them and be able to launch different products and then also offline products so actual physical products so from t-shirts branded items things of that nature some of our clients include Nike so every time Nike Basketball does a project in the Bay Area we do all their production and we've been doing it since 2015 another one of our clients was Tesla Motors we were doing all of their warehousing staff swag so anywhere from hats hoodies sweatshirts pants aprons t-shirts all kind of stuff all their their promotional items and branded goods also criminal minds we printed for them for the past I believe five years their last season just wrapped up and it was a really good pleasure of working with them and kind of building with them and helping them grow doing all their product for their staff and then also all of the actors and actresses on the show another one of our clients was Kevin Durant so when Kevin Durant was on the Warriors the first year that they won everybody kept calling him soft for leaving OKC and so when they won the championship they kept calling him a cupcake so what we decided to do is put a ring instead of a cherry on top of the cupcake it kind of leaned into the negative press of the energy that he was getting he wore this hat and it completely broke the internet it was like the number-one trending thing on Twitter it was everywhere right and so that's what I mean about connecting on an offline right taking some sort of offline product that we build and develop and then creating some sort of online conversation branding things of that nature another one of our clients is Starbucks so we do a bunch of stuff for Starbucks this is Rosalyn brewer on the right she is the CEO of Starbucks and one of the shirts that we designed and produced so this was really cool to kind of see her you know the number two person and one of the biggest companies in the world where some of your product and support your company and agency super dopes who to be a part of that also this is some stuff that we did for Steph Curry's basketball camp every time that the Warriors do different basketball camps and lead different basketball camps we do a lot of their promotions giveaways branded items t-shirts hoodies things of that nature so this was a project that we did for them we also have a partnership with the chase center so anytime artists come into town what we like to do is curate custom gifts for the artists to kind of give it to them as a thank-you for performing at Chase so it's a partnership that we've been doing for for a while now and we've done a lot of different artists and this was one of the projects that we highlighted specifically custom for logic now I've been doing this for again for the past 15 years we've had the opportunity to work with some really really cool clients some really cool people and also be able to kind of like share the knowledge and kind of build relationships with not only companies and agencies and different clientele but then also some celebrities and also be able to build and help with the next generation and give him back and kind of talking about my story and how we got into the business and things of that nature so most recently we did something for a big project for Starbucks where they did a Leadership Conference and they got over 12,000 partners basically they're all their store managers in the US and Canada and brought them to a leadership conference and we printed a shirt for every single Starbucks employee that was on there every store manager and every single store manager got a t-shirt so that was really cool that was a really cool accomplishment that we were able to kind of work with such great companies and develop and grow and build with them and then also support their initiatives so it's not just like t-shirts right we do all kind of different promotional promotional items branded products things of that nature for not only companies but also brands right again we work with some of the biggest brands in the world and I think now with nowadays with social media and with the way that the Internet is set up and everything like that we always see the glitz and glamour of things right we see the end result we see we see the byproduct of the work that was put in but not a lot of people talk about the process right and I think that's so so so important because it wasn't always like this right I wasn't what I wasn't always working with these big companies I wasn't always working with these different artists and celebrities and stuff like that and being able to help grow and and to provide a you know a clothing brand and to do all these different things it didn't start that way so what I think is super important for this process is to kind of take it back give you guys a little context to exactly what it is that how we started how we came up how we did it I'm gonna go through this pretty quickly I don't want to spend too much time talking about my story but I think it's very important for you guys to understand because I think what you guys will see is a lot of maybe similarities in my story with with where you are in the process whether that's you're just starting and and you don't really know what to do or you've started the process and you keep getting stuck I think there's there's some bits and pieces for my story that you can get so it all started here right and you know if you've seen anything or heard anything about my presentation you know what this guy meant to me this is my grandfather this was you know my hero this was my inspiration this was a guy that pushed me to follow my dreams and to chase what I wanted to and and I always believed in me and said I could become anything that I wanted to now I know what you guys are thinking because I'm gonna just say it and get it out of there yeah I was an ugly baby I was looking to him like yous about to kill me but you can see the look at his eyes he really looked after me and really appreciate it I don't know if any of you guys have a person in your life you know that believes in you a person that you look up to but if you do that you know that was one of the people in my life and I was a person for me you know I wasn't a good student I wasn't good student in high school I kind of messed up you know I was like just I was lost I felt like I was a law student almost didn't graduate but I was living my grandfather at the time and he ended up letting me start my first business in his garage my best friend started airbrushing and I remember I would go over to his house every day after school and watching him airbrush and I would I would ask my grandpa I was like hey you know me and deer I want to get into business together can we get some airbrushing equipment and he said yeah I'll buy it for you so he bought it for me I ended up graduating high school and starting my business actually starting a business in high school my senior year in 2005 and so we started this business right and this is this is from the early days right this is from the beginning times of what we were doing and as you can see number one I don't know why we chose to airbrush that picture of Bart with his butt out but it was something that you know we thought was a give us a lot of attention that was in my car at the time in the center was my graduation party the the picture to the right of that was my mom's car and that we airbrushed this my mom said it looked like crackhead Bugs Bunny because he looked like he was also cracked okay we would just airbrush a bunch of stuff it was like a picture of Dora the Explorer so Mac Dre shirts and fur from the bay and understand anything about Bay Area culture you know how big Mac Dre was around that time and how everybody was was rocking that so that was something that we did but in the center it was my business card right this is my first business card you know this was on MySpace was big so we were promoting our myspace we got our cell phone numbers on there you know you know shirts pants shoes hats paint car and motorcycle and helmets hoodies jacket etc that was that was what was on the services of our business as you can see like I literally went to Kinko's and pulled up I think it was like paint or whatever it was and then just put these you know put this thing together in like two seconds but we didn't know what we were doing right we didn't have any guidance we didn't know anything about business we had no idea of really what the heck we were doing so I remember specifically though there was one project and this opportunity that we had to do some stuff for this big artist right to do a custom shirt for them and I remember I was super super excited it took me like nine hours to get this shirt done I was super excited and then I had the opportunity to actually show him and gift him the shirt at one of his signings and this is the project that I did and I'm showing him the shirt now I don't know if you guys can tell who that is on the shirt because I can't really but it's supposed to be Rick Ross now if you know what Rick Ross look like he won't look like this and the funny part is I'm just holding the shirt showing him trying to get a reaction right and it's just silent just silent I'm like dang I can't even get all right and so I give him the shirt and he just kind of looks at it he's just gotta like you didn't even say anything right and so I remember I left and I was real nervous because the first time I've ever you know been in front of artists or trying to do something for artists and if you guys know being a creative when you put your work out there you get nervous you know what people are gonna say and stuff and back then I don't know how I didn't see that this was horrible and that I shouldn't give it to him but you can even see the dude in the red pulling it back like what the hell is he really gonna get that time and so I Reba brought left and I came back after the line had died down and he had left him and his fooled and bought up the shirt and just left it on the on the table you know I was like you know this is like I spent nine hours on this project right so I was just stressed I was like man I'm like why am I doing this this is stupid and and I remember my business partner my best friend and I started the business with was like yo let's just keep going man let's just let's just keep going like you know it's part of the process we're gonna learn we're gonna develop so we kept going we started passing out we started to you know network we started to go out to every single event we would put our cell phone numbers on the back of our t-shirts and our hoodies we would go pass out flyers we were everywhere we try to be on the scene this was even you know really before we were really good at airbrushing we just wanted to go out and just like we knew that marketing was important right getting the word out getting the messaging even if we weren't the best airbrush artist it was about that so we started to develop and we started to make some a lot of noise around the city right as we started to build up we started to make people started to recognize us and so we got reached out to by one of the reporters of the West Contra Costa Times which was a big newspaper and it probably still is in the area and they asked to do a write-up on us and so they gave us the the front cover of the business section in the West Contra Costa Times now this was in 2006 I had just graduated a year before right graduated in 2005 so less than a year later or a year later we were on the cover of the business section in the newspaper now at the time this was big right this is big the newspaper was this still kind of a thing right and so I just remember we were super excited it was something that was like it got us excited to keep going we we kind of evolved our skills from doing t-shirts and evolved into doing other projects so doing room murals and cars and even a boat one time and motorcycles and all these different things and so I remember after the article came out we got contacted by a guy that wanted to do a special project for Led Zeppelin and one of his role managers and I remember I was I was living my grandpa and I was just telling him about this project and he was super excited for me it was like man this is this is tight like you guys are you know you guys are actually doing it you guys are making progress I'm proud of you and so it was like it was a week-long project we were working on it this is the the project right here and I remember the night before this had to be delivered we pulled an all-nighter right we were gonna have to pull our all-nighter we were trying to scramble to get it done and we were in the garage at my grandfather's house and I was in the front room or in the dining room cutting out some pieces of our girl father was in the front room sitting down in his you know in his favorite chair and I remember it was about 12:30 at night and we were making a lot of noise you know we're listening to music we had our compressor running for the airbrush we were like you know we were in the zone and I remember like telling my grandpa do you want us to like finish up tomorrow or whatever because I don't want to keep you up and he was like no no I want to see how this comes out he's like don't worry about it so he got up and went into the back and I remember going into the front room and telling my business partner - I remember tell my business partner like yo like our grandpa's like a G and like my grandpa really believes in us like he really wants to see us succeed and I told him what he said and I just remember I said I you know I don't know what I would ever do without him and so I come in the house and I'm cutting out these pieces and you know I hear a noise in the back where my grandfather was and I kind of was cutting out the pieces and I kind of stopped and I heard him coming down the hallway and as he was coming down the hallway I handed up hearing this loud like crash and I remember I got up to go see what it was and my grandfather had had um had fell over and knocked one of the lamps over and he was on the ground and I said grandpa was wrong was wrong he said none just just held me up and so I had to kind of like pick him up and bring him into the front room and I ran in the garage and I told my business where I just called on one and I come back in and you know they're trying to call the paramedics on the phone with me he's on the ground rolling around and and it's just like a chaotic moment and I remember like I ended up stopping and and he made this this coughing sound and that I'd never forget and he ended up taking his last breaths in my arms and and passing away right he ended up having a heart attack and I just I just remember at that moment I was just so it just like if it was just one of those things where I just was not prepared for it you know I was 21 I you know I I I didn't know I just I had no idea it was one of those things that just completely knocked me off everything that I knew that five minutes I could be talking to somebody in the next five minutes they're gone forever you know and it it sent me into a dark place you know and and I shared this story because you know some of you guys may have dealt with the same things right some of you guys may have experienced loss maybe it wasn't this traumatic maybe it wasn't you know this abrupt whatever but maybe you guys have experienced something like that and if you have you know you know you know where it sent me send me in a place where I don't want to do anything I lost all my inspiration I ended up working this job that I hated you know I was paying these car doors for Toyota which you know it was it paid good but I was miserable you know and our best friend ended up getting the job with me and I remember as soon as we got the job he was just like dude we got to do something different and I was like man I I can't hear you right now I'm not trying to hear that he's like yo like we got to do something different this is not what we're supposed to be doing and I was just in such a dark place that I remember I just couldn't hear I just was like you know okay okay whatever and I remember one day I don't know what it was or I don't know what he said to me in particular that day or what I was feeling or whatever but he said like we have to do something different like you always does and I remember I was just like well what are you like what you know everybody always says you got to do something different but they never have any answers or solutions and he said look we always wanted to start this clothing company he said they they offer this screen printing class at this Community College that was next to us you know we didn't know nothing about screen printing we're like what the heck is screen printing but we knew that was the process getting images on t-shirts and we knew if we wanted to start a clothing brand we can't airbrush it and so he was like look we could start an era we could start a screen printing business where we can print for other people and we could learn and then we could use the money to invest in our own brand and I remember when he told me that it was like at first I was like oh that's that's actually a pretty good idea I put like all the voices in my head you guys understand what it is the the voices that just tell you you can't do this it's gonna fail anyways why you even want to try it all those negative thoughts came rushing to my head and I remember I just said I mean let me think about it I don't know and I think it was later that week I don't remember the details exactly if it feels that week or that day or something but it was recently where it was like right after that where my boss at the time called me in his office and he stabbed me down and he said hey Devin I you know I see something in you and I want to promote you to team leader and I remember just like thinking about this right and I told him I'll let me like I'm gonna get back to you he's like look it's gonna come with the race he was like get back to me by the end of the week so I remember going home and I remember really thinking and something about what my best friend had said to me that sparked some excitement about actually being able to pursue this this this entrepreneurial venture again right and this this this thing of being able to create and do your own thing and I remember I was at this like weird crossroad right because I was like I could sit here and be comfortable and get this raise or I could take a chance on actually going for what I want to do right and I remember I was just like okay let me like let me really think about this and so as we were going to work the next day or I think it was a couple days later my best friend was driving and as we were as we were getting to work we pulled it to work I told him look like let's go sign him for that class and he was like look don't play with me I'll turn his car around I was like not for her let's go and so he turned the car around and we went and we signed up for their class now when I tell you this was one of the best days of my life because I went from this deep dark just depressed place to actually have an inspiration again and we ended up getting in the class you know there was two parts to the class there's a beginner part and an advanced part beginners printing on paper advances printing on t-shirts somehow we talked our way into getting into the advanced class all the students of course were hating on us this was in 2008 when Obama was first running so everybody had Obama t-shirts so we would actually go outside of class and pick up business and then use the equipment in class to print Obama shirts and actually establish our business with the school equipment now we weren't supposed to do it the teacher was like look I could get fired but she allowed us to you know be creative and and you know honestly we ended up having to just pay her off but we had nobody so we had a bear offer like t-shirts so we just kept giving our t-shirts every time we would run shirts it's our remember we would do this for a while and and we would use the equipment and she would always say look you can't you know do this I could get fired and you know eventually the the semester ended right and and it was it was summer and I remember after school ended we ended up started picking up some like accounts and selling into stores and stuff and literally like right after school ended I got a call from one of the store owners and he was like yo dev I need 24 shirts by friday can't make it happen and I was like yeah for sure yeah for sure we got you and I get off the phone and I'm like oh ya know how we gonna do this like we have no access to any equipment and we don't have any money to buy any equipment what are we gonna do entrepreneurship 101 you have to be creative and you have to work with what you have there's always a solution right this is this is a key point I want you guys to take away now if you are an entrepreneur if you are gonna be an entrepreneur if you are looking to establish and build a business you have to find solutions you have to work with what you have of course it would be better if you had a million dollars of course it would be better if you had this equipment of course it would be better if you lived in a different place of course it would be better if your family had connections of course it would be better if you had better equipment or a better computer of course right there's always gonna be things that can be better but the thing with entrepreneurship is you have to be resourceful and creative with what you have right that's that's that's prime example if you cannot be resourceful if you cannot find answers if you cannot find solutions especially nowadays with YouTube and the Internet you have no business being an entrepreneur and so what we ended up doing is we went down to Home Depot I got some wood some clamps and some glue and I made this a one-color one station press now what I tell you I thought I was we were the next Steve Jobs like we just invented the iPhone like we're gonna be rich and so we set up the press and we print the first shirt and then we realized wait it's like wet ink on these shirts how are we gonna dry it and so we got to get creative again and you know we ended up going in the backyard getting some wood coming in the house loading up a fireplace laying all the shirts in front of the fireplace and letting the heat from the fire dry the shirts we were luckily we were using water-based inks so we can do that but it was funny you should have seen us we literally had all the shirts laid out in front of the fireplace closed all the windows and doors and just sat there and sweated and watch them shirts dry and so we back up the shirts that we go to the store and we slam it on the counter we're like yeah give us you know give us our check we did it you know we were super proud of ourselves from just being creative and making it happen regardless of whatever was in our way you know and I remember he looked at this and he pulled him out of the box and he stopped it he was like he's like wait why do they smell like a campfire right we didn't realize the smoke was getting on the shirts to make it smell like Smokey Bear just took it off so we said look we got some Febreze we want to breeze it out and he was like no I don't worry next time just make sure he shirts don't smell like a campfire now we ended up still getting the window display and getting like getting everything situated to get enough stuff his stores right and I just remember you know it was just it was such a crazy feeling because I was like okay if we really want to start this business if we really want to build something like we're gonna have to step our game up like we can't dry our shirts with a fireplace and so we're like okay we need some equipment but who's gonna be stupid enough to invest some money into us right who's gonna be stupid enough to give us some equipment because we were like oh we want to set up some equipment in our garage and we put together a little stupid business plan we didn't know what we were doing and you know nobody everybody turned us down except one crazy person and a crazy person was this lady my mom now to give you a little context my mom has lupus so she's been on permanent disability for as long as I could remember and she didn't have any money but the year before her mother my grandmother had passed away literally like a month after my grandfather passed away and she she left her a little bit of money it wasn't a lot but it was a little bit of money and I remember telling my mom about this plan and this idea and she said I'll help you out she said you know I don't believe in this plan but I believe in you and I believe that she'll figure it out so in 2008 we ended up converting my garage into our manufacturing facility we ended up turning our room into our office now this is in 2008 to give you a little context like Facebook was around but it was for college students Instagram was not invented Twitter was here but it was like you know for tech people right it was only MySpace you know this is when the sidekick was big you don't mean and so like entrepreneurship wasn't a thing back then it wasn't like it wasn't like how it is today where it's cool right everybody wants to be an entrepreneur everybody wants to have their business people looked at us like we were crazy like you guys aren't going to college like you guys just came out of high school and you're trying to start a business like what you think this is gonna work so we were getting a lot of negative energy and a lot of negative you know feedback from so many different people but we didn't care you know we kept ourselves positive in our bubble we were in a garage you know we weren't in the best environment grew up in in in South Richmond California so if you are familiar with the area let's just say it's not the most peaceful place to grow up as you can see in those windows on the garage we had a black come out with some vinyls so nobody could see what we were doing in the garage people died right thought we were there cooking drugs or something because we would have all these bags coming in of shirts and people were like what is going on but we were figuring out we were working with what we had we didn't have the best equipment we didn't have the best latest and greatest of things we had some really nice equipment right and now that we can work with but I remember it was so different than just what we originally had thought right what we originally had put together what we originally like used for the school equipment and we had to get adjusted you know we thought we were just gonna get the equipment and we were gonna be rich and it didn't it didn't turn out like that and that's what I really started to understand about like enjoying the process right it's not necessarily about the results it's about the process of building like enjoying each step you know we all go to the point and get to these phases where we can't wait until the next thing but we don't realize enjoying where we are now it's gonna help us get to that next thing we're always chasing the next the next the next but until we understand and enjoy the process of working and building and growing it's gonna be very hard to get to that next phase and if you do you're gonna miss the fun part the fun part is growing the fun part is building the fun part is starting from the ground floor you know that's the fun part like it's exciting you know now we're where we are in the position of where we are super exciting as well but looking back you're like oh those were the good old days those are the good times and so I remember like having to like rewire my brain for that because it was just like you know it was hard it was hard starting a business it was hard doing this stuff and I was like you know just I used to tell myself all the time just trust the process trust the process it'll work it'll work it'll work and so after we got like our equipment I remember we got like our first large order and I was super excited and this is the order it literally said stay fresh and had a picture of Fresh Prince of bel-air and I think it was like I don't know 19 shirts and this was like the first order that we produced with our own equipment on our own this was just it was just a proud moment because it was like going from you know just an idea to like then going to school and figuring it out to then like getting your own equipment and then producing your own product on your own it was just something about that you know so we were in the garage for about two years just building growing printing a bunch of stuff printing for other companies printing our own brand and just learning the ins and outs of how all this stuff worked after about two and a half years we moved into our first facility as you can see this is a little cleaner and more organized we hired our first employee at this time we were printing for pink dolphin we were printing for a lot of different brands as well as our own brand right and and building our own stuff and and producing product and just learning about how to sell shirts and how to produce shirts and a different type of screen printing processes and what you need to do in order to you know do different collections and designs and we were just learning and learning and learning and learning and so we ended up like networking right we will go back and forth and meet people we will go back and forth to LA and we ended up meeting a celebrity stylist that had a bunch of big clients and I remember we just treated him like he was a celebrity we would hook him up give him free stuff give him free gear and we would go back and forth in LA and he started working with the artists and you know every time we would go to LA he said look I want to I want to give the artists some of your some of your stuff and so when one time in particular we went to LA it was for Beatty Awards weekend and he was at the studio with the artists and he invited us to come over and so we came over we met the artist and his entourage and that artist was Chris Brown and so when we met him we met him and his whole entourage right and the guy in the center his name is big Pat that was his bodyguard at the time and so I remember we went to the studio and it was like it was crazy because you know we went from you know in the garage in Richmond and watching this dude on TV and hearing him on the radio and all this stuff to like him being in front of us and liking our product that was showing him right we did some custom stuff for him we gave him some of our brand he loved it he wore it but what I realized it's like everybody was around trying to get his attention and it was so hard to kind of establish a relationship that's everybody's trying to establish a relationship with him right everybody is all in his face talking to him and all this stuff so he said all right we're gonna take a little bit a different approach right and another lesson in entrepreneurship make yourself valuable the more valuable you are to people the longer they're gonna keep you around and the more business you'll be able to get the more value you provide the more business you'll get the more value you provide the more business you'll get so I remember sitting there in the studio and I saw his bodyguard by his self on his computer so I went I started a conversation with him and I was just telling him what we were doing and you know this this and this and we had a service to provide for him and and and which was screen-printing and so he was like oh you know I want to get some shirts made I got my logo BB for life I would love to get some shirts printed I was like all right cool like I got you like will will print your shirts for he was like look I don't you know I'll have a big budget I said no I don't worry about it I got you so we went home right after that trip and we exchanged information we went home and we printed a bunch of shirts probably will probably like we probably printed like about a hundred shirts sent it to pat completely for free and in that shipment we added some of our own products right some of our brand and so he was super excited you know every time Chris would pop up on TMZ or whatever who was in the background wearing our stuff the big bodyguard so it was free publicity yeah it wasn't the artist wearing it but it was the guy right next to him and he was in the shots and so we started to build a relationship with him and we started to build and establish a relationship and we ended up just providing a bunch of value to him like giving him free shirts hooking them up and every time we would go back and forth to LA we realized oh okay Chris and I exchanged numbers but he's busy he doesn't answer the phone but Pat does so every time I'm talking to him he's the bodyguard right he's the one that gets people next to the artist he's the one that knows the schedule he's the one that he's the one that that is a main component in this whole thing so we started to build a relationship every time we would go to LA we would hit up Pat and he would put us right next to the artist so he'll put us right next to Chris he would tell us where he's at he would answer the phone we started building started establish a relationship and it got to a point where he told Chris like look you need to check these dudes out like they're doing some dope stuff and I remember one day you know we're sitting at home it was after we had got back from a trip and I get a call and it's from it's from Chris and I'm like he's probably you know PocketNow me or whatever and so I answered the phone and he was super excited he was like yo what's up bro he was like look you know I've been talking to Pat you know I want to do this collaboration I wanna I want to do this collaboration project with you guys and he started like telling me about his ideas and all this stuff so I was like writing it down like in shock like oh dude I'm like you really like he really wants to do this and so long story short we ended up building a relationship with him we ended up producing this product creating the product for him and we did a couple full-on collaboration projects with him we helped produce his own products and sets them stuff up and then we also did a bunch of other different products with them and establish a really cool relationship and started building with him the picture with him with the shirt was his Twitter icon default picture for I don't know for like a year and that was the first collaboration shirt that we did the one in the center picture was kind of famous I was a line that we were gonna do the one with him holding up the trophy was when he won best male R&B artist that's our logo on the sleeve of his shirt and then that other picture is that his album release party for fame in New York I went out there and was with him during the release party so it was just it was such a crazy experience to think about all this and then building the relationship with him led to working with other people that's a young Justin Bieber in the center him wearing that stuff 50 cent t-pain Trey Songz Rick Ross Chris again with Bieber and all this started from you know building the relationship and not being afraid to give stuff away for free and to establish the relationship and think long term and it was something that you know it paid off for us you know and it just kind of sparked the momentum and at the same time that this was happening that we were building our own brand we were printing for other brands too so we were one of the first people to print for pink dolphin so we did a bunch of stuff for pink dolphin their first celebrity was Chris Brown which were these two products this is like their first big big celebrity and and we got him the stuff we took we took this picture of him with the jean jacket on with the shirt this was at his house we met up with pink dolphin gave him the product took it to him and that helped them kind of sparking and and get some traction around that stuff as well then we were start doing a lot of stuff with the summer jam out here so we did like summer jam from 2012 to literally 2019 we just did in 2019 every single year we print all of the summer jam stuff so all the radio station out here I heart media cameo while 1949 we do all of their products we produce and develop all the street wear team all the stuff like that also printed for her Ito's that was the activation that they did in collaboration with the radio station and we did that we helped develop product for summer camps and school swag and different event concerts this was something a product that we developed chants of rapper ended up wearing it a project that we did with Honda Mohandas stage basically it was for their all their Northern California Honda dealers this is the project that we did with Tesla everything now my motto is to give something you never had you must do something you've never done right that's my whole concept it's my whole philosophy in life so we started a brand which was our brand that we had been building out for a while called doing everything different right doing everything different just allows us to have some creative expression it allows us to do different launches and different products and different do different releases this is me and some of my team when we launched this campaign called let's be United it was a time when you know the country was so crazy and it's been kind of just increasingly getting worse and we wanted to create a campaign to say look like we all want the same things at the end of the day it's just we need to open up communication and have conversations everybody is oh this is my side this is your side nobody wants to talk sounds like let's come together let's be United so that was a concept of this campaign we got the support from trey songz who we've been working with for a very very long time and it just allowed us to invest into our product right and do different products and releases and different drops we even opened up our first retail store where we do like exclusive drops and stuff like that but none of this stuff would have been possible if we didn't start here so the reason why I wanted to take the time to give you some context and share my story is because none of that stuff would have been possible if it didn't start with this shirt and me not giving up now when you guys start something it's gonna be ugly like this shirt it's gonna be uncomfortable it's gonna you know feel like why am I doing this it's just gonna it's it's just not gonna just click right away and that's okay it's not supposed to click right away like if you want to build something if you actually want to grow if you want to establish a brand if you want to establish a business you got to understand it takes time you know it takes time to grow but you know who would have thought that you know a couple years later from going from this and giving him a shirt that he puts down on the table and doesn't even think twice to him actually wearing some of our product as video because he wanted to wear it now because we paid him not because anything he wore the product because he generally liked it and he wore it but looking back and when I did that first shirt it just kind of is a it's just a marker to say oh this is an accomplishment right so I just want you guys to understand that whatever it is that you're doing just understand and know that it takes time you know from going from being in the garage and and imprinting and not really knowing what we are doing to this picture right here was a collaboration with Nike and the warriors and we did a Rena takeover where we did over 24,000 shirts for every single person that went to the Warriors vs. the Lakers game like that just happened in just in in in about 12 years 13 years right so it takes time so what I'm saying is whatever it is that you guys are doing you have to be patient you have to be patient you have to believe in your ideas you have to understand that it is part of the process to have those ups and downs and and to understand that and I just made it my mission I think in 2012 I just had one thing that was really part of what I wanted to do and what I wanted to contribute was giving back to the next generation so I started speaking in 2012 working with the next generation working with a lot of youth helping them start their businesses talk to you know launch their ideas launch their t-shirt lines all these different things and kind of help them develop this was something that we did a project with Chevron and the junior social innovation camp where I went and spoke talked about my story gave them some little you know some advice and stuff and then we also printed their shirts you know chevron created the design we did all the production on the shirts travel across the country speak to thousands and thousands of students of just the importance of having your idea turn it into reality and the concept of doing things different right building out and I remember a common question that I kept getting all the time is like look I want to start my t-shirt brand but I have no idea where to start and I understand when we first started we had no idea had no idea what we were doing how to start we didn't understand what screens were we didn't understand we didn't understand nothing and so last year my team and I said okay like let's build something for the next generation to support the next generation of entrepreneurs and we came up with the t-shirt business right the t-shirt business is is solely dedicated to provide the media the education the training the production the manufacturing everything that it is that you need in order to get started and launch a successful t-shirt brand right there's processes that come with it a lot of people ask I don't know where to get my products made I don't know what best products to get I don't know what sizing breakdowns to get I don't know how to match my colors there's so many different things that are involved that we've learned along the way from being on the manufacturing side and being on the front end retail side of things and actually doing the selling of the final final product and then also doing the production behind the scenes of the product we have an interesting and unique view of stuff that we've learned for the last 15 years of things that we've picked up and we are putting it into education and different items for the t-shirt business and to be able to give this back to the next generation so what I ended up doing is I hand selected a few people from my agency from curieux to work on this project to make sure that this project was successful so we got van Hoff who's content development so he helps record content helps record courses health record all of the content to help with everything Sophia who is our production manager so she helps with managing production managing orders everything like that Britney who's our content editor she makes sure all of our stuff is you know all the content it's edited and everything like that Mike who's our creative director and Tristan who does pre-production so he helps with pre-production sampling pre-production proofs to make sure that your ideas come to life the best way possible and make sure that you know what it is now we created the brand launch package and so I wanted to talk a little bit about what comes in that package and how you guys can get started with your ideas and launch your t-shirt brand and get started so the brand launch package comes with 50 premium 100% cotton t-shirts right 50 premium 100% cotton t-shirts we use the belly canvas three zero zero one so there's all these different colors that you can select from right so any type of color that you want you see the ones that are available over here to the right and all the colors it's available now this is 100% combed and ring spun cotton t-shirt really really nice high quality t-shirt so it comes with 50 t-shirts custom branded with your design right so your design can have up to a three color print so you can have one design with up to three colors in it so you can pick 50 t-shirts from sizes extra small to 4x with a three color print right each shirt gets individually folding bags and you get free shipping anywhere in the u.s. plus what you're gonna get is access lifetime access to our online training so this online training I'll break it down right because I think the the the biggest thing when you go to get your products produced right you go to a screen printing shop whatever especially when you're getting started there's all these different options there's all these different choices there's all these different things to pick from but when you're just getting started you have so many questions you don't understand how screen printing works you don't understand about all these different things so what we wanted to do is we wanted to create an online training to get you caught up to speed so you know you can go to a screen printing shop and a lot of times you know the people that you work with are gonna get kind of frustrated with you or they're gonna give you the short end answers and they're not gonna really fully explain in detail the entire process but we said okay why don't we create some training so we can go really really in-depth provide any sort of resources provide any instructional stuff we can walk you through it show screen shares show the entire process step by step that you can't do in a 30-minute consultation or our consultation with a screen printing shop so here's some of the stuff that you're going to learn in the training so you're going to get the the basics of screen printing so screen printing 101 exactly how it works step-by-step how the whole process works we're gonna show you breakdown the entire process of how films are made how screens are made how shares are actually printed the different types of inks everything like that then we're gonna talk about Pantone colors right Pantone colors are the universal system of matching colors right so if you go to you know you get your hats made in China and you get your two t-shirts made from us and say you want to you know you want to have the colors match but and say it's a purple you can't just tell them purple you see all these different shades of purple just on this one color card right here so if you don't want your Purple's to be different every single time there's what they call Pantone colors right Pantone colors are basically just a universal color code right a number that you're able to give to different manufacturers or whoever you're working with to make sure that you're not saying purple you're giving them the exact purple color that you're trying to try to do so we break down Pantone colors give you guys some resources some resources where you can buy Pantone books on Amazon where you can go and look at their website and color match stuff we break down the entire process how to make sure that your colors match every single time then we're gonna talk about finding graphic designers another thing that's been a big thing is like people need help with designs maybe you could be a designer that have designs or you know how to design or you may have these ideas but you have no where no idea of where to get this stuff made so we break down how to find good inexpensive graphic designers right that can range anywhere from as low as $15 I mean you could get real crazy I mean you could spend thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars on design depending on what artists and stuff that you get but we show you ways of how to be able to get your brand and how to develop your concepts and ideas at a really really really affordable rate to be able to test it out and build it out so we're gonna give you all the resources on how to find good graphic designers what to look for how to reach out to them how to communicate to graphic designers to get and make sure your ideas come to life with exactly what it is that you want then we're going to talk about artwork preparation so if you are a designer if you do create your designs we're gonna talk about how to prep everything so make sure everything is all situated to be able to send to your manufacturers to make sure everything is good so you can prep the artwork to be able to send to us and make sure that everything is all situated then we're gonna talk about art separations this is something that you don't really need to necessarily do because this is the process that we're gonna be doing this is how we're gonna separate the artwork in order to set up the screens but we think this this section is really important because it gives you some context to how the screen printing process works so now you know how to set up your designs how to look at your designs how to create designs how to communicate to your designers on setting it up to be able to you know how many colors is gonna be in the design it just gives you some context on how the process works so you understand when you go into you know the pre-production planning of your collection you understand how to set everything up then we're gonna talk about pre-production right so not only artwork separations but what do we need from you to be able to send to us to make sure that your orders come out exactly how you want it right from sizing to again those PMS colors so the Pantone colors is what you see next to those color boxes where it says PMS and it has a number those are color cards on a specific shade of these different colors right we're gonna talk about custom neck labels how to you know the placements of your sizing of your shirts then we're also going to talk about social media right how to market on social media how to build your brand how to build a following how to establish and grow and to build your brand so inside the portal this is what you'll get you'll get a dashboard where you can search everything each section comes with some sort of video resources links to different resources just packed with a ton of ton of valuable lessons each module is broken down to where now when you click on the module you'll see all the different sections within that module and how everything is all set up so we wanted to make it really really straightforward and provide so much value and go into detail of how the whole process works because again the thing that I see with people that are just starting out they handed out they end up wasting a lot of money because they just simply don't know the best route to go they just simply don't know the best route to go so we wanted to break down and provide an infrastructure for people that are just starting to leverage their ideas and to get started now these are some comments from some people that have taken our online trainings before and that have you know kind of gone through it and launched their products and launched their ideas this was actually stuff that they just went through the online training this new production of us handling the production and actually producing the product for you it's something completely brand new that we're taking on for the last I don't know five five six years we haven't taken on any retail clients we've only been working with big brands so we've only been doing production for the Nikes the Warriors the Tesla's the Starbucks all of those type of people's so we've actually built the t-shirt business program and carved the time out of our schedule and our production schedule to be able to support upcoming entrepreneurs to develop their first collections and to be able to build and provide packages for them to not only launch their ideas but to do it in a way that's gonna be most cost effective and give them the training and the tools and the the roadmap on what exactly to do that's gonna help them be successful so here's what you get you get 50 premium 100% cotton t-shirts up to a three color print right so the print could be up to three colors each shirt is gonna be individually folded and poly bags you're gonna get free shipping in the US plus you're gonna get lifetime access to our online training now this is a total value of seven hundred and ninety seven dollars right what we wanted to do is we wanted to put everything together in a bundle now if you break it up and you you know purchase everything you look at the line items get setup fees and all these different things we said okay how do we just create an inclusive price so you guys know what you're paying and it's the first package to get started to really be able to establish your t-shirt line so this is what we're gonna do instead of doing the 797 it's gonna be only $4.99 plus tax that's it so you're gonna get all of that for only 499 dollars plus tax now this is going to be a limited availability based on our schedule right based on our production schedule once our production schedule fills up we allocated a certain amount of packages that we can take on per month but as soon as that stuff is filled up we're gonna close this out so you're gonna get all this stuff for four hundred and ninety-nine dollars plus tax right now this is the thing let's do some math real quick all right let's just do some basic math of what this looks like so say you sell each shirt for thirty dollars that's fifteen hundred dollars revenue so fifteen hundred - 499 is a thousand dollars profit so not only are you gonna get the four honey now back but you're also gonna make a thousand dollars now thirty dollars maybe kind of steep right for a t-shirt so let's say we sell for $20 our $25 $25 times 50 shirts its $1,250 revenue $1,250 - $4.99 $751 profit well you're gonna make the $4.99 back plus 751 dollars profit but let's just say 25 dollars is too expensive so you sell each shirt for 20 dollars right a quick 20 just make it simple twenty dollars you sell a shirt 20 dollars 50 shirts that's $1,000 $1,000 - $4.99 it's 501 dollars profit so you're gonna make the $4.99 back plus the 500 on one dollar profit now do you think you could sell 50 shirts for at least $20 think about it only 50 shirts for $20 how many people do you know that you think will support you and pay at least $20 for a t-shirt a nice high-quality premium cotton t-shirt individually folding bag the presentation is gonna be on point for only $20 now if you were able to do this that's at eighty three point five percent ROI which is return on investment now this is the easiest way to start right the very easy simple to understand right you pay that you you have the fee which is the $4.99 which comes with all the stuff plus the training on what to do on how to set it up and you get 50 shirts you sell each of for $20 and now you're on your way to actually establish and building your t-shirt brand you've generated some money you've generated some profit you could reinvest into getting more t-shirts you can reinvest half of it and get them getting more t-shirts what I recommend is investing all of it into your business whether that's into marketing whether that's into you know advertising whether that's into other products whatever it is because that's how you're able to grow and how you're able to build so here are some additional services this is not included in the $4.99 so these are just add-ons there will be additional charges if this is something that you want to do so we can do custom neck labels so we can put your custom neck labels in the t-shirts that's additional seven dollars and six seventy six cents each shirt so it comes out two additional one eighty seven 75 if you just want that extra you know professional where it looks like your t-shirts were completely made from the ground up that is an option and availability is it necessary for your first order no you definitely could do it with the branded tags that are in there but for those of you that want that extra level of professionalism that service is available also additional print locations so if you wanted to do say you wanted to do a print on the front and then you wanted to do a one color print on the back that's an additional 165 so that adds about three dollars and 30 cents to each print so if you wanted to do a two color three color for color five color you get the idea so whether you want to do a front print which is completely included and the package we could do front back whatever it is and say you want to do an additional print location whether that's on the sleeve on the back whatever it is that's the cost that's the cost right there we also have Express production so our schedule is filling up fast since we rolled this out and since we launched it so standard production time is 20 to 24 business days right so that's production time that includes shipping so basically you'll get them in hands which is included in the package in 20 to 24 business days and that includes production like I said and shipping but if you want to do Express production and you want to your order up in line and up on a production schedule you can get it in hands between 12 to 14 business days and it's only additional $45 so again let's recap what you get you get 50 premium 100% cotton tees Bella canvas up to a three color print individually folded and bagged free shipping in the US plus lifetime access for our online training that's a total value of seven hundred and ninety seven dollars you're gonna get it for only $4.99 plus tax now again this is a limited time limited availability based on first-come first-serve so if it's something that say you don't have your design ready yet say you're still working on it maybe it's gonna be ready next week or next month or whatever it is once you purchase this package you can start going through the training and everybody that purchases basically locks in their production slot so even if you don't have your design ready to go and you want to go through the training maybe you don't even have a design right but you want to do this you're able to lock in your production spot you're able to go through the courses you're able to find the graphic designers from the resources there's a bunch of stuff that you're able to do and your slot gets locked in and that's saved so whenever you are ready you could go into production right away so here's some some fa Q's right some frequently asked questions about this package that I get a lot so can i print on multiple color t-shirts so as long as your design is the same colors nothing changes right so if it's red black and white you can print on up to two different color t-shirts so you can print on black shirts and you can print on orange shirts so you can print up to two different color t-shirts as long as the design colors do not change another question can I do less than 50 or 25 on one design in 25 on another unfortunately no this package is for 50 shirts right 50 shirts of one design so you have 50 shirts and you get one design can I get a sample of the shirt you can get a sample of the blank shirt with no printing on it just the sample you want to try it on see how it feels see what the color looks like you can purchase a sample for $25 which includes shipping so they'll be on the next page or below this page you'll be able to see a link where if that's something that you want to do and you want to get a sample shirt you're able to click on it fill out your information make the $25 payment and then we'll ship you the actual shirt and the size and the color that you want what about bigger sizes so in the package in the $4.99 package that includes sizes extra small to extra large anything 2x and above is gonna be an additional charge because it's more fabric right it's more fabric so of course it's gonna be a little bit extra charge so I think it's two dollars extra per shirt for two x's three for three X's four dollars extra for four XL so it's nothing crazy but there is more fabric so the shirts cost more how much are the additional services again it depends on which additional services that you want the printed neck tags are a fee that you'll be able to go when you actually go to place your order the way that we have the additional services is because we want you to understand the entire process first before you add the additional services on so you pay the $4.99 you don't have to add any of the additional services it's just the $4.99 then when you go to place the order we have our own platform that you actually go and place the order which it's gonna have you you know we walk you through this in the training but it's gonna have you select the neck tag templates that you want like we can design that we have a couple templates to choose from so we just need your logo it's gonna ask you you know all of your your artwork files and all that stuff and then from there you can add on the additional services and make the additional payments if that's the route that you want to go but again like I said those are just for people that want to elevate their brand to the next level and kind of you know have a more professional look to it but this package without any add-ons is completely perfect to start into launch a brand again this is just for people that want to have that extra those extra things on the shirts do you guys make our designs no we do not make your designs this is the reason why we can get this for so cheap is because we want to give you the tools and the resources that you provide the designs design the print-ready files for us we give you resources to get say if you have a JPEG or a PNG file and it's not vectorized we give you some resources on where you can get a vector for super cheap for like $15 we provide resources on where to go to get designers if you have sketches we do not do the designs it would cost you way too much to have our in-house people do it so we give you resources on where you can get them done for inexpensive and for good rates and stuff like that so no we do not do your designs you need to have your designs ready when you come to us but again if you want to lock your spot in once you purchase and make the payment that locks your production spot in and it allows you to get your artwork stuff situated until you're ready to go what if I have more than three colors in my design that is not a problem at all it will just be an additional charge per color a deeper additional color on top of the three so say if you have four colors that'll be additional charge if we have five six seven you know based on that so the first three from one to three is covered in the package but anything above three it's gonna be a little bit more expensive how long is this offer available again this offer is available as long as our production schedule is open so once our project production schedules slots fill up you'll have to wait until some spots come come open as of right now we have a few spots open but again they're filling up pretty fast and if you want to solidify your spot if you want to get your spot on our production calendar even if you don't have the artwork and everything ready you go ahead and make the purchase get your production slot available and then once you get all the product and stuff like that we can go ahead and and and release your order into production if I don't have a design yet again this is this is a question I get a lot which is why I wanted to just make sure that I broke it down weld enough so you guys understand there's a lot of resources that we have within the course that you guys can go and find graphic designers some that are really inexpensive where you can get designs anywhere from $15 to you know a hundred and some dollars $250 one of those resources is Fiverr so if you want to be proactive and you want to go and you want to start looking into getting your design go to fiverr.com which is FIV e RR dot-com so fiber comm is basically excuse me it's a resource where they have freelancers where you can go and you can basically put your ideas together and go reach out to freelancers that can turn your ideas into reality in the course we go in depth of like how to you know communicate with a graphic designer how to send them your ideas to make sure you get exactly what you want how to build stuff out and to send it to make sure you get your designs exactly how you want it so that stuff is all in the package now a recap what you're gonna get you're gonna get 50 premium 100% cotton t-shirts on Bella canvas three zero zero one you're gonna get it up to a three color print you're gonna get them individually folded and bagged you can get free shipping in the u.s. you're gonna get lifetime access to our online training again that's a total value of seven hundred and ninety seven dollars you're gonna get it for $4.99 plus tax now again this is limited so based on our production schedule and based on how much this is or how many orders we get in and how many slots get filled then that's gonna determine when it closes and when it opens so if this is something that you've been thinking about you know it's 2020 if it's if this is something that you've been wanting to do for a while if this is something that you've been wanting to launch but didn't know where to start if this is something that you're looking at just testing it out to see if it works you know we broke down the numbers you saw the numbers you just gotta sell 50 shirts for $20 and you doubled your money basically now even if you sold half of them for $20 you made your money back right you sell 25 shirts for $20 you made your money back so we wanted to create something that allows you to test out your design to test out your idea to see if this is actually something that's gonna work we wanted to create a very simple plan to understand we wanted to create a very simple pricing structure we wanted to create training to make sure successful you know not just give you the product and say okay cool you're on your own but give you the support and resources that you need to not only do some high quality retail production on your shirts and give you the the quality and production where you don't have to worry about finding a good manufacturer but then also give you the training on how to sell those shirts and how to build your t-shirt brand this is something that will allow you to test that it gives you a roadmap of everything so when you go through the training you'll see it's very very broken down and thoughtful on the entire process on how you set it up what you should do how you should reach out to friends and family and different things like that so if this is something that you've been thinking about this something that you're you know ready to get started on you'll be able to either click on a link below I think there's gonna be some more information and click get started it will go ahead and ask you to to make the payment you'll get your production you'll get your production slot filled plus you will get instant access to the training so you can start going through the training literally right now like you could literally purchase this and start going through the training right now and then submit your order if you have your design you can submit your order tonight you know or today whatever time you're watching this or whatever or you can submit it tomorrow or you can submit it in a month and you know however you want to set that up but you can start going through the training getting everything set up and getting everything in line so I'm super excited for you I hope we get a chance to work with you I hope we get a chance to turn your idea and your vision into reality and with that being said I will talk to you guys soon if you have any questions feel free to feel free to reach out to us and I'll talk to you guys soon peace

Channel: Devin Lars

Views: 63,727

Keywords: tshirt, tshirts, business, tshirt business, starting a clothing line, how to start a brand, launching a brand in 2020, screen printing, how to start tshirt brand, launching your business, Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneur, graphic designers, graphic design, illustrator, Illustrations, DTG

Id: 0MzQzOBFF4U

Length: 67min 49sec (4069 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 04 2020