This is Part 3 of an ongoing series on how Soft Goods started. Missed the earlier parts? More installments coming soon.
2012, Josh in the basement laundry room, being interviewed by Fox News
PART III: DOWN IN THE BASEMENT
If you've read the story up until this point, you'll recall that I was a teenager crazy about t-shirts, slinging them out of my locker in between classes in high school. I was spending my time after school researching new techniques to make them, and had even discovered online design tools where I could mock up graphics and order them directly from that page (Bluecotton.com was my site of choice, if anyone remembers that one!). I was making iron-ons of my own designs, and ordering tees online for my school sports teams and family reunions.
Enter the band era. I had been playing drums since I was a very young kid, always starting bands with my cousins, and eventually in 2012 I was introduced to a new band, called Yours Truly. After trying out, I became their drummer. These guys were legit. Playing ever bigger shows and moving some real volume of merch.
As I got fully acclimated with the business behind the band, I started running some numbers in my head and realized that we were very much overpaying for our t-shirts. With the knowledge I had from making shirts myself and ordering from these online print shops, I figured I definitely could learn to screen print and make them myself.
This opened one of the biggest cans of worms in my entire life. I found this website called Ryonet.com where I could buy a "Silk screen starter kit" for a few hundred dollars and they also had a robust YouTube channel where I could watch and learn every aspect of printing.
I can still remember burning my first screen in my parents' laundry room while they were asleep upstairs, and printing my first shirt. A graphic that I had made on the computer was now being pressed onto a real t-shirt with my own two hands. I was HOOKED. Below is that first ever screen, and the printing I did late that night in 2012 — a "YT" for our band name, Yours Truly.
I would spend every minute I could down in the basement, watching the same video over and over until I mastered each aspect of printing. I was using the computer lab at my school to teach myself Photoshop so I could separate out art files, then take them to Kinko's on my way home to print out overhead transparencies to bring home and burn more screens that night.
I quickly printed more shirts and designs than my band was able to sell, and so I set out to find other "customers" for my basement business. Huge shoutouts to everyone who trusted me to make their shirts in those early days. Thinking back, it's really crazy the projects I quickly started landing. I printed uniforms for TJ Maxx, tees for my friend's non-profit, Bands That Jam For Africa, and even did the first ever merch tee for another friend's band, Speak Low.
I was off and running, figuring out how to turn this new hobby of mine into a sustainable business. It would only be a matter of time before I started playing around with designs of my own. Stay tuned for the next installment.
Thanks for following along,
Josh
Early tees printed in the basement.
