This is Part 2 of an ongoing series on how Soft Goods started.
PART II: THE KITCHEN TABLE STARTUP
You want to know when Soft Goods really started? Not the LLC, not the sewing machines. It started at my parents' kitchen table when I was in high school.
Before I was looking at fits and fabrics, I was customizing banana stickers. Those little blue Chiquita ones with the yellow rings. I'd doctor them up with dumb jokes, things like "Fun Sized" (and worse), and sell them to anyone who'd take one. It was ridiculous, and it worked.
Early "Yorkalicious" banana sticker tees — the design DNA is still in there somewhere.
I taught myself graphic design using Microsoft PowerPoint, of all things. Clip art, shapes, whatever I could bend into something that looked like a real graphic. I'd print it out, cut it by hand, then head to Michaels Crafts for blank Gildan tees and iron-on transfers. My mom would help me print them from PPT, cut them out, and iron them together at the kitchen table. Then I'd post the shirt on Facebook, ask who wanted one, and collect fifteen dollars a shirt, sold straight out of my locker between classes.
Zooming out a bit, this wasn't my first hustle — I sold silly putty in fourth grade and mowed lawns with a buddy in seventh. It wasn't about getting rich, I just loved the game of figuring out how to make something people wanted. T-shirts were just the thing that stuck!
I've kept at it over the years, eventually investing in a screen printing press (more to come on that later) and going deeper into the craft. Ultimately, when I bought my first sewing machines, starting with a great tee was a no brainer. Is it crazy to say that the tees we make today are the mature descendants of the banana tees? Maybe, but I'm saying it!
Thanks for following along, you make doing it the hard way worth it.
- Josh
