September 7th, 2005

Over the summer, while I was in Taiwan, I somehow came into contact with Mike Lee through Chris Lim. I had met Mike a couple of times, but never got to "know" him. Actually the first time I met him was when a bunch of us went clubbin’, it was my first clubbin’ experience. Needless to say, I was quite drunk and never had a chance to get to know the guy. Chris told me that Mike, like me, was a man with an entrepreneurial spirit.

So naturally we chatted for over five hours and decided it'd be a good idea to start a T-shirt company together. That’s right, on the spot. I think both of us were a bit iffy at first about it, but the more we talked, the more we felt it was a good business venture to take. I actually didn't want to post anything about all this t-shirt business. In fact, I haven't even talked to that many friends about it. I was afraid that if it didn't go through, it would become one of those half-brained ideas of mine that doesn't go through... Thus I would appear a failure in front of tens of people.

But after talking to Roy, he convinced me that it was a good idea to let people know about this business through my online journal. It would be free publicity, and more importantly, whatever happens, it would be a great learning experience, to be able to look back on the progress, whether it ends in success or failure. And roy was right, it'd be stupid not to take this opportunity to talk about it.

I had been working on this post for some time now. I had another version that's about 10 pages long. The reason it got so long was because, the idea for the company started in July, and it is now September. That's three months of progress. There's a lot of empty space to fill, and I wanted to fill them all. But that would've been a catastrophe to let people read it all. So I won't bore you with all the details.

Safe to say, we now have a temporary brand name, and have started to design shirts. The name is pseudochop, and the site will eventually be housed at, that's right, www.pseudochop.com. Unless of course, we come up with another name, then all bets are off. But there would still be a t-shirt company, just by a different name.

A little bit of background. Mike is doing animation at Academy of Arts in SF, so he knows a lot about graphics design and web design. That's mainly his department, and a good thing too, since it's the part I'm lacking. He also has contacts with clothing manufacturers in California. I recently graduated from UNC with an advertising degrees, so I've got a few ideas in my head. I've been working on a comprehensive marketing plan, and will basically make sure the "message" of our brand will be consistent and follows a path of some kind, and not go all over the place. We both contribute pretty good ideas for designs actually, and I can be a perfectionist when I really need to be. So far, every idea presented, even my own, has been under close scrutiny and debate. Maybe that's why it feels to me that this company is moving along so slowly. Though, looking back on it, we've been moving pretty fast. Another paradox for me to digest tonight.

And Roy has been giving me some great advice on the logistics side of the process. Making sure things move from design to production to shipping quickly. I don’t know the exact words, roy is quite mysterious like that, but I got his point. He also suggested that one of us take the role of... sort of director of operations, sounds kind of important, but I’m just the guy who sets out a checklist, or weekly agenda for the both of us. This I have been doing since last week. In two weeks, we will have four t-shirt designs ready, along with four possible logos, brand new business plan, and another agenda list. I’ll probably have to add more to that list so I don’t sit around all day.

We actually have a working business plan, twice revised. Mainly to guide us. Now that we have a temp name and a better idea of where we're going, I have the task of the third revision. I also have to do a lot of reorganization and such. So when the building of the site begins, I'll be able to implement some of my splendid marketing ideas. Once the designs are done, we'll be able to get a quote on the shirts, and thus be able to create a financial projection, which will tell us whether we have the resources to do all this. This will be the biggest challenge, if in fact we had underestimated the costs.

Basically, to give everyone an idea what types of shirt we'll be designing and selling once we get underway. We all know what novelty shirts are, humor tees and graphic tees. Well, ours is sort of like that, but hopefully better. Ours will be more design oriented, and the shirts itself of better quality. Also, instead of using Hanes, fruit of the loom or whatever other underwear company to provide us shirts, we’ll be our own company with our own brand of shirts. Tagless shirts might I add. So these shirts would be a lot more stylish than your run-of-the-mill humor tees and be a lot better quality. Last you longer. I’m also trying to figure out a way to really set us apart from the “novelty shirt” category, but so far am having trouble.

The reason we really have to make that distinction is because mainly, our first batch of shirts will be very limited. We probably won’t have the resources to come out with more than 6-8 designs, if we’re lucky. And if really lucky, perhaps one of these designs will be for a Tabulas shirt. Pretty much, our designs have to be really good, better than novelty. There’s a lot more, but I wanted to keep this semi-short, so that’s it for now. I’ll update from time to time about our progress.

Also, if you have any design ideas, please let us know. Once we start printing, if you design the shirt, your name will be printed on the tagless tag as the designer, and listed on the website as the designer of the shirt. You’ll get the recognition you deserve. So if you have always wanted to design a t-shirt, feel free to let me know.

Please, anyone with business experience, have ideas, or any advice to give, don't hesitate to offer your expertise. I’m all ears.

Update on shirt design progress: going well. We shall have at least 4 designs to show to the public in exactly 7 days.