How We Launched An Entire Apparel Line in 10 Days with Less Than $250

Yep. You read that right. T-shirts and hoodies, 5 different product lines, professional images and videos of the apparel on dozens of models, $250 and 10 days.

But how Sway?

I'll tell you how. A little bit of collaboration + a little bit of hacking + a little bit of hustle goes a long way.

-----

The story starts at a conference in Philly back in October, where I delivered one of my #IntentionMastery workshops entitled "How to identify and execute on the ONE DAILY ACTION that drives your revenue."

-----

I was only there for one day, but I met a superstar designer, Eric Jordan. If you're wondering why that name sounds familiar, it may be because you've come across his must have e-book for entrepreneurs, "Fire Your Designer: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Designing for Your Own Business."

-----

Eric and I chop it up at the evening mixer, and I share a bit about what I'm up to, he shares a bit about what he's up to, and here's where it gets interesting. In passing, Eric happens to mention that he's got this merchandising superpower (my words not his).

He hears a hot new line in a song or a celebrity say something really catchy, and he goes right to his laptop and immediately designs a shirt around that theme, which he'll then be selling online within like 2 hours...

-----

"TWO HOURS?" I say. "Two hours." Eric says. "Well how do you handle the sales, do you have to keep inventory and fulfill orders?"

" Nah...I never see the product, the money just hits my account from orders, and the product is drop shipped from a fulfillment house. It's all automated through the website..."

-----

I give a blank stare, I think I'm visibly salivating from the corner of my mouth at that point in the conversation.

"Well is it that fast because you've already got the site set up and customized, or could you stand up an entirely NEW brand in just hours?" Y'all know where I was going.

"Nah it's super simple man, even with a brand new account, maybe it would take me an extra hour to set up the account, but that's about it."

-----

BRUH. At this point, it is all I can do to maintain my composure, because we've been wanting to launch an apparel line for ImBlackInTech for a couple years now.

It just always felt like it would be too time consuming, because we didn't know how to automate everything so it would add true passive income to our pockets, without creating any additional work for us.

-----

I now had all the information I needed, and next came the 3 magic questions I needed to ask Eric:

1. "Eric...could you stand up an entire apparel brand, soup to nuts, fully automated, drop shipping, the whole nine yards, in 7 days or less?" "Yes? Ok..."
2. "Would you be interested in carving out your career identity in the marketplace as THAT guy who specializes in setting up an entire online retail merchandising supply chain and custom designed product mix in 7 days or less for entrepreneurs?" "YES? Ok..."
3. "If ImBlackInTech was willing to help you define and grow your personal brand identity as THAT guy, would you be willing to first show and prove by standing up OUR apparel brand from scratch?" "YES?!?! Oh s*it, is this really happening?!?!?"

-----

Then this happened...

-----

So let's recap...

• Eric designed all the product and got our drop shipping account set-up at Printful.com, so we can make money while we sleep
• Our Co-Founder Jason Stewart added a little elbow grease to get a Shopify site branded specifically for us up at ImBlackInTech.shop
• Jason connected it to the Printful site with a simple plug-in, and it took maybe all of 30 seconds to connect the two accounts
• Now we can manage our online retail store on Shopify, and have all the drop shipping and fulfillment automated through Printful

-----

But there's one more thing you're probably wondering about. How on earth did we coordinate getting dozens of models and all that product for a professional photo shoot, and a professional photographer to shoot all those pictures and edit them for us, all within 10 days, ALL FOR LESS THAN $250?

-----

Here's our little secret...www.Placeit.net. You can find models right on the site, in whatever context you're looking for, even video, and superimpose your product designs right onto t-shirts, hoodies, etc right on their bodies.

The end result looks photo-realistic, and for what looks like we had a photo shoot that cost us thousands of dollars, we paid...wait for it...a whopping $8/image. Worth the read, right?

-----

So now you know all of our dirty little secrets. We hope you took one thing from this read...with a little elbow grease, a little hustle, and listening for where there are opportunities to collaborate, there are possibilities all around you to launch and grow low cost, high quality projects.

AND the ImBlackInTech family is here to help you do it. Our members span 40+ cities and 6 countries, so you can plug in from anywhere.

If you are a Black or Latinx founder of an emerging tech startup or technology professional, join our family and become a member at --->> ImBlackInTech.com

-----

If you like what you read, or you want to be a part of our mission to support, celebrate and educate Black and Latinx founders of emerging tech startups and technology professionals, browse a few of our products below or at ImBlackInTech.shop, choose one that you like, and represent!

FOUNDER PERSONA HOODIE

CODER PERSONA TEE

BLACK BUSINESSES MATTER TEE

#TECHLOVE MY GIRLFRIEND IS A FOUNDER TEE

#TECHLOVE MY MOMMY IS A FOUNDER TEE

IMBLACKINTECH BRANDED TEE

IMBLACKINTECH BRANDED MEMBER HOODIE

#HUMBLEBRAG TEE

-----

And remember, wherever you see the U symbol for #WeUnifyTech, know that a portion of all proceeds from the sale go to programs that support, celebrate and educate traditionally underrepresented populations in technology, the tech underdogs (women, people of color, formerly incarcerated, lgbtq, military, people ages 45+). Go launch something great!

 --------------------------

Thomas started his entrepreneurial career selling luxury custom car accessories online from New York to California out of his dorm room at Tennessee State University, and never looked back. Over 15 years later, beard grayed from the trials of entrepreneurship, Thomas is an author, an emerging tech startup founder, a speaker, a Google Entrepreneur in Residence, and the creator of a global membership organization for Black and Latinx founders of emerging tech startups, with members in 40+ states and 16 countries, who have raised + generated over $415MM in their startups. Learn more about Thomas’ current projects at ThomasKRStovall.com.