To continue telling part 2 of this story, I have to take you back in time a bit to the Fall of 2017.
Back then, I was considering, for the trillionth time, the idea of starting a t-shirt business. As a graphic designer I’ve always felt that I could pull off designs that people would wear on shirts and other garments or accessories. After all, a decade earlier I had designed an entire line of t-shirts for a national Christian Clothing brand called Alpha Omega based out of Phoenix Arizona. So to give myself a motivational boost, I did what most people do when researching things, I turned to Youtube.
What I discovered on YouTube was amazing.
At this time in history, YouTubers in the know, were claiming that it was now easier than ever to start an online t-shirt/clothing business using integrated web app technologies. Specifically, there was now an enabling technology called P.O.D (Print on Demand), that made the labor intensive production, fulfillment and distribution sides of a t-shirt business a no-brainer choice - with little out-of-pocket costs.
The YouTubers explained how P.O.D. was an existing and legitimate way to reduce startup and production costs, and virtually eliminate overhead costs related to product fulfillment and distribution.
In other words, I could realistically, and for the first time ever, imagine myself building a nuts-to-bolts, branded t-shirt company, in a way that would require no one else to launch an online store. It was promising news.
Back to 2020.
Remember the 3 month Hotel Palomar residency that lasted all of 9 days? (See previous post). Well, having to exit the residency because of 2020's five-letter “C” word provided pause for thinking. I realized in this moment how vulnerable my fine art business had become. And with the world locking down and afraid, high-end luxury spending was off EVERYONE'S table.
So there I was, it’s Mid 2020, nearly two years since watching YouTubers describe a new and better way to build and launch an e-commerce t-shirt business, and suddenly the reality hit my entrepreneurial mind - I needed to move as fast as I could and build my own clothing brand and launch my own online clothing store. There was no time to waist.
So it was back to YouTube to get the bottom-line nitty gritty on how to start and launch an original e-commerce P.O.D retail clothing business.