[GetemDuck]

I have been trolling this board for a long time and learned a lot about the industries from doing so. Currently I have kept my operation very small because I work full time and have kids and it is a scary leap to being a small business owner with no guaranteed paycheck. Which brings me to my question – I bounce around between business models of working for ME and working for the CLIENT, I want to design and sell my own shirts my own brand with no feed back from clients, but is their more money working for the client doing customer designs and customer shirts?

Who do you work for, which model keeps the lights on?

 

[SlashX]

I'm new to this and this question interests me. I hope you get some good responses.

 

[NoXid]

What keeps the lights on for me is having had a good paying corporate job and no kids ;-)
As a result, I have no debt and a low burn rate, so I can skate by on less than most people.

Assuming you don't live in the middle of nowhere, doing custom work is probably going to be a better bet. Although there are new people everyday on this forum who want to design and sell their own line of T-shirts, my sense is that more people on here make a living printing for others than doing their own line. Lots of hungry newbe wanna-be design moguls (and low-post-count abandoned accounts), but most of the long-time members seem to be doing custom printing. But maybe I am just seeing what I expect ...

That said, I print and market my own line. It is the marketing stuff that is the hard bit, in part because that just isn't my strong suit, in part because it is the hard bit. You still have to market a custom printing business, but you are likely to be printing up orders for a dozen or couple hundred garments, rather than trying to unload shirts one-by-one to individuals as you do in direct retail.

Of course, you could pursue both paths, as well as wholesaling of your own line. But if I really needed a steady flow of money, I would still have a day job.

 

[GetemDuck]

NoXid, you are right, printing for clients does generate a bigger bang for your buck then one here one there. I think that every person dreaming of building a brand your hopes are to score a large box store retailer who has a high demand for your product. My hope has always been to build my brand my way and sell wholesale and contract out the printing lol but that is just a dream right now as I simply do one offs on a small scale....epson transfers and vinyl only for now. Just wondering what my next step should be brand or custom print shop.

 

[webmaster]

We do work mostly for schools and sports teams, with local businesses sprinkled in here and there. We're limited to embroidery and vinyl right now but are looking at adding sublimation and expand to more custom sportswear. We have our own branded items available but I don't think we've ever gotten an order for them. Most of the orders are for events and from parents.