TLDR: If you’re looking for someone to simply print one or a few tshirts with little to no setup – UberPrints is the best service I’ve found. They’re a bit more expensive than the full option that I’ll outline below, but if you want to trade some money for time and efficiency, they’ll take care of you. Learn more here.
If you want to have an ongoing merchant relationship who will print & fulfill (and help create custom designs for your apparel) for you on an ongoing basis (and at larger volumes), I recommend FutureShirts. Email [email protected] and tell her that IMPOSSIBLE sent you to get special treatment.
Please note: this is how I previously had my tshirt production set-up run. It has since changed. Please treat this accordingly. I’ll post an update when I’ve got my new system up & humming.
The Impossible shirts have been online for a few months and we’ve sold a few hundred of them. We’ve got a bunch of pictures of people doing some impossible things, and even had a university class order them for their final presentations. When I made them, I figured I’d sell a few, but it’s gone over much, much better than anticipated.
In fact, they’ve gone over so well, that lately I’ve been getting a ton of email about how I did it. Instead of writing the same email over and over, I thought I’d lay it all out here one time. At first, I was a little apprehensive to do this, mostly because t-shirts are the first thing people think of when they think of easy ways to make money. When organization wants to raise funds, some genius stands up and yells, “I know, let’s sell t-shirts!”
It’s true, a lot of people make t-shirts and a lot of people make t-shirts that suck. They’ll either make them and don’t sell a single one or sell a bunch that end up at the bottom of people’s drawers or thrown in a trash bag laying around for the next trip to GoodWill. So, this is designed to help you make shirts that suck less and ones that people want to wear and share with their friends. So, while I’m still not sure that everyone should make t-shirts, hopefully I can help those that choose to do so, make their t-shirt lines a little better.
Understanding The T-Shirt Concept
Table of Contents
How hard can it be? There’s three basic steps, right?
- Sell T-shirts
- ???
- Profit!
- To people who know the brand, it’s clear about what the shirt represents and makes them want to wear it.
- To those who aren’t, be interesting enough to peak their curiosity and make them want to learn more.
That’s it. Don’t try to make it a million different things or you’ll have problems. As long as it does those two things, you’re good. People get all wrapped up in what t-shirts are and aren’t that they miss the two above points. Don’t get this confused.
T-shirts aren’t
- A quick way to monetize your blog.
- A cash cow.
- Very fun to fulfill.
- A community builder
- An extension of your brand
- Pretty Fun
Don’t Create A T-shirt!
A lot of people ask me about creating a t-shirt when they haven’t created anything else first. If that’s you, don’t focus on creating t-shirts! Create something else. A blog. A business. A brand. Something. T-shirts are cool, but unless you’re an apparel company, t-shirts should not be your main focus or your main source of revenue.
They’re an asset to something else you’re building. Not the whole thing.
Ideally, you’ve already created something that people like talking about, that people are interested in and that people want to tell their friends about. If you’ve done that, most likely, people will be asking you for t-shirts, and you can simply go out and create one for them. The main reason I finally came out with t-shirts was because I got message after message from people asking for something to wear and they were starting to become unruly. The need was driven by the community, not the other way around. So I went ahead and decided to go ahead and make a shirt.
This is how I did it.
Creating Your Shirt
First up. You gotta have a shirt. Crazy, I know, but true. This is a pretty simple first step, so don’t screw it up.
PICK AN AMAZING BASE SHIRT
This is what is people are going to be feeling against their skin every time they put it on. Make sure it doesn’t suck. If they’re more expensive, so be it. If you cheap out this early in the process, you probably need to focus on something else. If you get a cheap shirt that feels like sandpaper, you might get people to buy it, but you won’t be able to get them to wear it, and that’s the whole point after all.
So pick a good base shirt – one that you’d wear over and over even if it didn’t have any logo on it – and use that (For what it’s worth, for the Impossible Tees, we use the American Apparel Tri-Blend Track Tee). I’ve had lots of people tell me it’s the most comfortable shirt in their wardrobe – comfortable enough to wear out anywhere, but light enough to work out in. It’s a great shirt before I do anything to it.
Designing Your Shirt
Have an idea of what you want. I knew that the IMPOSSIBLE logo was going to be the front of mine. Then had a very good Then find a good designer to do their thing and make it happen (Steven did mine).
This was my original sketch (before we eventually made it into the official logo everywhere).
This is how it turned out eventually.
In between we had a bunch of other types of designs, but we settled on one.
- ONE
- UNO
- 1
That’s it. Just make one shirt.
I know you think you’re creative. You probably are, but this is not a practice in exercising your incredible creative skills (you’ll have a chance to do that later). There’s a really bad line of thought that is easy to fall into:
If I have one shirt, and I sell 50, I’ll sell 50 shirts, so if I have 50 shirts, and I sell 50 shirts each, I’ll sell 2500! I’ll have more money than God and start a t-shirt empire! I’ll start heating my house with $100 bills.
WRONG
If you have one shirt, you might sell 50, but if you try and sell 50 shirts, you’ll probably sell 0.
I’ve seen so many people come out with 10 or 20 different versions of t-shirts and not sell a single one. You’re not Colin Wright. If you want to design a shirt a day for year, do it, just don’t expect to sell and fulfill them all in a way that doesn’t end up with you to gouge out your eyes.
The point is to end up with one design that your audience can wear with pride and identify themselves as part of your tribe – not 50 designs that people think are cool but will never actually buy.
Create one shirt. Commit to one design. This your is your branded t-shirt design. You can’t have 50 of these. Pick one.
Keep it simple
Once again, your first time out, t-shirts are not an exercise in your creative skills.
Remember, your shirt should be able to do two things
- To people who know the brand, it’s clear about what the shirt represents and makes them want to wear it.
- To those who aren’t, be interesting enough to peak their curiosity and make them want to learn more.
Mine’s pretty simple
IMPOSSSIBLE
If you want more info on the shirt and site behind it, the url ImpossibleHQ.com is visible on the back of the shirt.
That’s it.
No over the top designs. No crass promotion all over the place. Just the logo. You wouldn’t believe how many people who’ve bought the shirt and emailed me to say that they’ve had to explain to their friends what IMPOSSIBLE means and how it’s been a conversation started even with strangers.
This of course, relies on the fact that hopefully you’ve created a simple & concise message for your brand (if you don’t have this, you shouldn’t be working on t-shirts already – see the top of this post).
But if you get all the way through this, congrats. With the base shirt picked out and the design, your shirt is created – well virtually, at least. Now to make it come to life.
Finding a Printer
Find somewhere to print your shirts. This is pretty simple. All you need to do is find a t-shirt printer. These guys are everywhere. Chances are you’ve got one or two or twenty in your town or near you and another couple hundred online. There are a lot of people that do it, the challenge is finding people who do it well. I’ve used a few different people.
For Hashtag Boom, we set up shirts via Skreend, which does do a nice job, and has quality shirts and fulfills them for you on a one-off basis with no up-front costs for you. Unfortunately, the individual tee price is pretty expensive which means you’ll probably make less overall sales if you go this route. Since Hashtag Boom is more for-fun than anything, it was a good arrangement to just get something up. However, if I was expecting to sell more than a handful of shirts, I would find another option.
For the Impossible Gear, we set up an arrangement with Decatur Screenprint through their site MerchVendor Future Shirts. This was an interesting process. They have an initial order of 24 shirts to get things started. I bypassed this by paying an initial set up fee and ate the costs myself while waiting for the shirts to get set up. Because a bunch of people had expressed interest already, I’d knew I’d be able to sell at least that many + a few to give away to friends and family, so I paid the initial set-up fee out-of-pocket, essentially pre-ordering 24 shirts myself. If you’re short on cash or don’t know if the shirts will go over well, you’ll definitely want to hold a pre-order from your audience.
What about the money? I make $6/shirt on a $20 shirt (I told you it’s not about the money), but I’m very happy with it considering the quality of the shirts we make, and the fact that we ship anywhere in the world for FREE. In fact, the regular base shirt costs about $2 more if you buy it in one of American Apparel’s retail stores than it does to get the Impossible Shirt shipped to y our doorstep (I don’t care who you are, that’s pretty cool).
In my experience, I’ve been pretty happy with Decatur overall. At times, we’ve had some shirts slow to ship out, but most of the issues have been on American Apparel’s end (they run out of stock a lot) . On a scale of 1-10, I’d give Decatur an 8. If you’d like to work with them, go over to MerchVendor, tell them Joel sent you and they’ll take care of you.
I’m pretty happy with Future Shirts. They do a great job and Jourdan is an awesome helper. Check them out and tell them IMPOSSIBLE sent you and they can hook you ip.
Setting Up Fulfillment
You are not an apparel merchant. You don’t want to handle this. Trust me. It’s more work than it’s worth. You run a site, a website or a small business. You do not want to be handling orders, inventory, shipping, etc. If you sell a million t-shirts, you can start worrying about dealing with this yourself if you really want to. My printer takes care of my fulfillment for me. Let them take care of it. Also, I’ve never had anyone ask about returns, so I can’t help you there at all.
Marketing Your T-Shirt
Get your shirt. Wear it. Go out in public.
Then, get photos taken. Put them on your product page and please don’t try to sell your shirt by only using mock ups on torsos of unidentified stock models.
Do you really expect other people to buy and wear your shirt, if you’re not willing to do the same thing?
Exactly, so get photos taken – real photos. Find a friend that’s good with a camera or hire a pro. (hint: the difference professional photography can make is absolutely amazing. People are always impressed by how Impossible HQ looks, but it would look so much different if it wasn’t for the photography work.
For the launch, I went downtown Chicago for 12 hours and we took photos all over the place. It took a while and was freezing cold, but we ended up with some pretty great photos despite the fact that they were shooting photos of this ugly mug the entire time. Just take a look at what they were able to do with the subject they had.
Seriously, how they did that is beyond me, but that’s why they’re pros. Get photos taken. They make a world of difference.
Be Original. Do Something Different.
One of my big pet peeves is that people take creative ideas, boil it down to a few bullet points (like this list) and through the process, lose a lot of the originality that comes from having an idea. Then everyone always does the same thing and things that were creative and fun become boring.
Remember when I told you to save your creative energy? Now’s the time to use it. Do something different. Be original, not boring.
I can’t tell you what to do here (if I did, it wouldn’t be original). For our launch, we decided to have a little fun with things. While hanging out downtown with Jeff and Marla, we were laughing about how some commercials are overhyped and promise things they can’t actually deliver on. We thought it was pretty fun so we decided to ad-lib our own parody of them on the spot touting the unreal benefits of the impossible shirt
Somehow that led to talking about the Old Spice guy commercials and me trying to do my best impersonation of him (I couldn’t quite keep it together though).
And what would anything I do be complete without calling out the-arch-nemesis Steve Kamb and making fun of him?
BOOM.
We realized that having fun, was…wait for it…fun. Which brings us to the last point.
Have Fun
T-shirts can make a decent amount of money, but I’m not in the apparel business…yet. More than anything the process was fun. It created a shirt for an already existing community that could embrace it. It allowed us to be creative in a new way, helped promote the blog outside of the normal online community and do something different. If you’re going to make t-shirts for your blog, you’ll have a much better chance if you make it fun. Make it something that people want to be a part of instead of shoving it down their throats complete along with branded miniature action figures, keychains and koozies. By making it fun, we were able to make it into a community project rather than a Joel project. By making it fun, we were able to solicit reader photos doing impossible things, and turn them into different galleries to use around the league, facebook and HQ. Have fun!
TLDR: That’s okay, I still love you. Here’s the quick and dirty.
- Make ONE Shirt
- Keep It Simple
- Find A Printer (I now use Future Shirts)
- Get Good Photos
- Do Something Different (Be Original)
- Have Fun
- BOOM
In case you’re wondering, you can grab your own Impossible Shirt and be a part of the Impossible community. We’d love to have ya. And, if you’ve got one already, go do something impossible, take a photo in your shirt and send it in! We’ll be putting a full gallery of everyone together soon. In the meantime, here’s a mini-collage of the people who’ve sent photos in.
If you’re looking for the softest shirt in the world or a shirt built for an athlete – look no further.
For those who are asking, I’m currently using FutureShirts.com as my vendor of choice. I’ll be writing an update on this very soon.
If you want to have an ongoing merchant relationship who will print & fulfill (and help create custom designs for your apparel) for you on an ongoing basis (and at larger volumes), I recommend FutureShirts. Email [email protected] and tell her that IMPOSSIBLE sent you to get special treatment.
If you don’t want to do any minimums, I recommend you use UberPrints as they’ll let you design a T-shirt online and create your own store with zero hassle and ship them on a one-off basis. As a result, the shirts are much more expensive, but that’s the tradeoff you make when you don’t have minimums.
Update: we now have dope hats as well
Great job on this “impossible” post, dude. Looking forward to seeing you again soon.
Me too Chris :).
I think you could have not explain this any more clear, It just goes to show someone that does not complicate it too much and enjoys it has been successful. This has inspired me to do the same. Many thanks!
Thanks Joel, incredibly helpful and resourceful info for those of us considering “apparel outreach”!
Good luck. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Hi Joel
I am writing a book it’s call Life beyond Reggae Music. It’s about all the reggae artists from Jamaica and beyond. It’s for a charity to raise money for healthcare. I have designed my own shirt and is trying to get it out to the public who love reggae and also to promote the book. Can you help me with sites or places to launch it to? god bless! Have a great day!
Do you have to have any kind if legal stuff done before you sell the shirts
As long as you’re not using anyone else’s mark – go for it.
Just heard about your website through Chris Guillebeau on Google+.
Great site!
It really is a great shirt and it’s nice to see the back story behind it. Thanks Joel!
Thanks for rocking it Matt!
Great post. I have been thinking of making a t-shirt for my business (just for me to wear). You make it look easy and much more impressive than my idea, but I gotta start somewhere. It really inspires me to get started. Thanks
Just do it man. Get started and make it happen.
Dominate!
Thanks dude, perfect timing for us as you know….wheels already in motion with merchvendor
#BOOM. Make it happen.
Great stuff, Joel. I’m nearly setup with Decatur after talking with you a few weeks ago. They’re amazing and sending proofs to me now.
You’re right about being a distributor. You don’t want to be making trips to the post office every day. Let them do it.
I’m not selling mine directly, so there’s no cost for the store. Instead, I’m including them as part of a membership site I launched 12 months ago. Can’t wait to tell folks who have been with me for a while.
Awesome. Glad you got it done and made it happen. Nice job Justin.
Nice one. Who needs a wetsuit? I think I’ll just get two shirts; one for the top, another for the bottom. Scuba diving, here I come!
I’d like to see you run in that :p
This is awesome. I’ve been wondering about the specifics of making a T-shirt. My research has been significantly minimized by this post. Thanks Joel.
Impossible koozies please. Oh and I’m sharing this post with my friend with Fierce Forward. Keep on being Joel! Aka awesome!
Impossible Koozies coming right up!
Really funny, and useful! Impossible HQ was new to me when I arrived on this page from Twitter, and now I’m a big fan. Thanks for the help and humor!
Joel,
Super job. Not much more transparent than this and still keep it G-rated. I just started a new program with Corbett Barr and will be building a blog/business from the ground up in 13 weeks. Tshirts will be part of the mix and this has been extraordinarily helpful in my research. Dude, thanks so much.
FYI – found you thru Justin Lukasavige
Sure thing. Keep it up. Good luck with the launches.
the reason your tshirts worked is because you took your existing brand and raised it up to the next level which was, in your case, the shirts.
you weren’t selling tshirts to begin with. all of it is selling an idea, a lifestyle, a COMMUNITY of likeminded people. and your brand is fresh and exciting enough that heck yeah.. people want to buy a shirt and be proud for what it represents! good job, joel!!
You got it.
Hi Joel I trademark the slogan Stay in the game and I want to put that slogan on t-shirts in red,white and blue. On the back of the shirt state focus, concentration, perseverance. I live in Corona California so I’m new to this.you can see a photo of the sweat shirt on my Facebook page under Tracci miller but I need help launching this slogan that can be marketed to all sports around the world or in team colors from NBA or college team sports. Let me know what you think about it and can you help me in anyway possible.
Wow, kick-ass article my friend.
I agree, it’s more about the fun and the message than the sale.
I luv the simplicity of yours, and the strong message that it conveys. Like I said before – in the future, you’ll rank number 1 for impossible on Google 😉
Question: Even though the company you partnered with does all the shipping & logistics, isn’t it really easier to sign up for Spreadshirt ?
They’re quite affordable and offer a similar margin.
I’m asking this because I’m jumping into T-shirt designs again and I’m curious which route I should take.
I don’t know the margins on Spreadshirt, but MerchVendor was definitely cheaper than the other options I’ve seen (Cafe Press, Skreened, etc).
Skreened one was about $10 more without even adding in shipping. Having one place and a standardized cost for everyone made setting up MV a no-brainer for me.
Joel, what are you doing with your life?
A lot of things. Impossible HQ for one.
Dude, seriously, I would totally buy the action figure!
The neighborhood postal carrier commented on my -IMPOSSIBLE- shirt the other day while I was wearing it. She’s an artist in her spare time, and she was impressed by the simple but effective visual design of your logo.
I’ve had a couple of other comments, too. People “get it” when they see the design, even if they’re not familiar with your site.
You might be able to sooner than later 😉
Glad people are digging the shirt! Thanks for repping it out on the islands!
Hahahahah…
Joel, dude, I don’t even know what to say.
I created an EPIC T-shirt line a few years ago, that hasn’t taken off, and which I’ve put on the back burner.
It needs some focus, some re-branding, but every inch of advice you shared here is fantastic.
As well, recently Johnny B Truant and Jessica Commins from the Badass Project was interested in one of the designs.
Respect, man.
The time will come when I have a passionate apparel genius on-board to run with it.
Here’s the sell-sheet I had for it, if you wanna take a look: http://ryzeonline.com/wp-content/uploads/evolved_clothing_teaser.jpg
I’d love any thoughts 😀
This guide is awesome! I’ve made t-shirts for my site before, but I went through Zazzle and they cost like $32 a piece. As a result, only two exist.
Now I just need to come up with a design that doesn’t have 6 colors like my logo does. Then I’ll be hitting up this guide again.
gud1 Joel!
its usefull…planning to bring out my own range of T-shirts..but making a different one is difficult…my research is on..
..
Great advice and good design! It looks like you have had a lot of fun with the t-shirt because it’s a reflection of your brand and your customer base. Way to go!
I love the passion you put in what you do. The T-Shirts are beautiful and inspiring.
Hi mate, wanting to design a particular style of t shirt but have know idea where to find a place that will make the shape and design i want. If you know of any companies that can do this (that will make a different type of cut) so i can buy in bulk that would be great
cheers Dom
No idea how to help you man unless you specify what type of cut you’re looking for.
Hi Joel
Thank you for taking the time to guide us on the t shirt venture.
I am developing a web based game for college students and young professionals and a player can opt to t shirt.
I have contacted Decatur and they said they no longer do t shirts for you.
Can you please recommend printers who do your t shirts now.
I need the same service like the one you were getting from Decatur/MerchVendor.
Thank you Ruth
Go joe
I get it I’m starting a clothing line called Prison City, and yes I need to make sure everyone don’t think we are x cons so I can relate to getting people to understand a product. Prison represents the job or rutt you may be in and City is the environment that is waiting for you to do something With your life. I got a lot of work ahead of me for that one! But it’s all motivational clothes. And your statement were moving in the common sense world. Thanks
Did you have to copyright or trademark before you created your product?
I have one now – it takes about a year to issue. Don’t let that stop you from starting though.
Great post! You have really simplified my life with your helpful tips. Are you still using MerchVendor for your printing needs? I am on the step of locating a printer so any info you can provide would be great. Thanks again for the post.
No we have a new vendor.
Gday Joel ,
Whos your new Vendor? if you dont mind us asking.
Thanks Sean
Hey Joel!
What a helpful post, thanks a ton for the infos
However, I still wanted to ask you about the whole shipping process.
How do you manage to send it to anywhere in the world? Doesn’t it cost you a handful?
Please let me know!
Wishing you an awesome….wait for it…weekend! 😉
Guljeet
Hi Joel. Thanks for the information. . . . much appreciated. Do you have any printer suggestions for Canada?
Thanks! and keep on doing the impossible!
Cheers,
Lou
Joel,
I really appreciate you putting this together. I learned a good deal. But you made an assertion that I want to understand. You advise people NOT to create a t-shirt unless they’ve built something else first. I don’t really understand why you’re saying that. If you’ve got a great idea for a t-shirt (and possibly other types of apparel) but no underlying “community,” why are you advising people against going for it? Just curious.
Because it’s really hard to make money selling tshirts. It’s a commodity business.
Great ideas! I am having a hard time managing my new shirt business because I have little capital and like 6 designs already. It’s hard to sell and very hard to market. I think I should pick 1 design for now and wait for about a month to release another design. My design is very unique and simple and I’m going to follow your tips. Especially the 1. One. Uno.
Thanks a lot!! 🙂
I love the inspiration behind your t-shirt! Yes you have inspired me to continue with my t-shirt business. You was talking about me because I do have plenty of sayings I would like to put out there but I will do what you said and keep it simple with a purpose. Thank you for the tips to start my business. It lets me know that if God can do it for you he can do it for me. Its that simple! Thank you! Continue to do impossible things!!! God Bless you!
Who is your vendor now? I’m looking into making a shirt for a client’s brand, and I’m trying to find a good vendor who uses American Apparel.
Joel, thanks for your advice. I currently use uberprints and am looking to reduce the price of the shirts. how much drop in price did you see when you changed from uberprints to futureshirts???
this is probably the most important blog post in the world.
Hello, thanks for this great article. How do you make it free shipping?
Love the article. So many insights!
Do you use Amazon to sell and dropship your shirts? I am thinking of starting with Amazon and using basic SEO tactics to push a website that refers the customer to my product on Amazon.
This is just so on point. I have been thinking about for quite a long time to set up a custom printing online business, preferably a custom clothing website. I was looking for some tips and tricks and you just saved me from bankruptcy (chuckles). I stumbled across a few websites and thought of competing them 😉