8 Reasons You Should Start a T-Shirt Business

Five months ago we launched ApplianceSchool to help people start their own appliance business and the response has been amazing. We have students from all over the US and Canada who have already built successful businesses. It’s a great feeling to have helped people start their own businesses, earn a great living, set their own schedule and spend more time with their families.

Update: We are moving ShirtSchool to a new home. If you are interested in learning about the business, drop me a line.

But the appliance business may not appeal to everybody, so for some time I had been searching for another good business I could help people get into. Today I want to introduce ShirtSchool.com, a great place to learn the t-shirt business.

How I found out about the t-shirt business

A friend from college had posted a shirt he’d made for sale on Facebook.  It looked nice, so I purchased it. A few days later it showed up and was as sharp and comfortable as it had appeared. I was impressed and also curious as to how my friend Seth had gotten into the business. When I reached out to him, he shared two things that stuck out: First was how much he enjoyed running his t-shirt business and second was the difficult path he’d had learning the business.

We decided we could make the learning process better, and over the last several months, we built ShirtSchool.

Here are 8 Reasons you should start your own T-Shirt business.

Every day is different, and it’s a fun business.  There is variety in the t-shirt game. You’ll be physically printing t-shirts some of the time, dealing with clients some of the time, working on artwork some of the time … on and on.  What you won’t find is a lot of mindless drudgery doing the same thing all day, every day. And you’ll come into contact with groups and events that you wouldn’t ordinarily cross paths with.

Be your own boss and take control of your income.  There is a sense of freedom and pride in deciding what should be done and then labor to achieve it. You can earn more money by taking on more projects, and your income is tied to your success or failure. Unlike a traditional job, working hard and caring about the quality of your work benefits you primarily, as opposed to your employer.

Freedom to set your own schedule. As long as you get the job done, when you choose to do the work is up to you. You can work in the evenings, weekends or whenever is convenient for you and your family. You can work in the middle of the night if you want to, especially as printing t-shirts isn’t a noisy process.

To supplement your existing business. Making and selling your own t-shirts in your existing business is a great way to add another stream of income and promote your existing brand. If you have a great business and come up with a great t-shirt design, you could end up creating a major source of income.

You can work from home and live anywhere. If there is one thing that anchors a business to certain locations, it’s access to customers. Fortunately, t-shirts ship easily, and the internet provides access to a world of potential customers. Seth has shipped t-shirts from California to Hong Kong, all from his little shop in Northwest Michigan.

T-shirts are easy to sell. There is nothing more discouraging than getting into a business that the product is difficult to sell. It’s already hard enough to build a successful business and having to convince people that they need your product is not fun. Everyone wears t-shirts. Americans alone spend over 40 billion dollars a year on decorated apparel.

You are creative and you love making products.  Artists shouldn’t be poor and people shouldn’t be wearing ugly t-shirts. One of the best and easiest ways to get people to support you as an artist is to put your artwork on a t-shirt.  People need clothing, people want to supports artists, marry the two and you win.

It’s a great gateway business. You might start by making t-shirts for a client, but once you show them you make a quality product at a good value, it can lead to more projects. With the same materials used to print shirts, you can also print other products like hoodies, bags, hats, signs, and other items.

Seth learned the hard way

Seth shared with me the difficulties of learning the business. For starters, many looking to learn the business attend 2-3 day workshops. These can often cost $400 or more, not including travel expenses and time away from your family. And once the weekend is over, you’re on your own. It can be frustrating and costly not having someone to turn to for guidance when you’re starting out in the screen printing business.

Besides learning the technical side of the business, one of the other difficulties is learning the “business” of t-shirts.  It’s not enough to learn how to screen-print t-shirts, you also need to learn how to get clients and make sales.

We were convinced we could make a better course

We’ve spent the last several months creating a comprehensive guide to starting your own t-shirt business. It also comes with detailed training videos that walk you through the entire process of making shirts. We’ve also built a community forum to connect students with t-shirt professionals like Seth.

If you’re interested, please check out the site at ShirtSchool.  For a limited time, the price for the course is only $97.

Seth is a great guy, a great teacher and he puts a lot of effort into his work. Anyone that decides to take the course will soon find out just how much Seth cares about seeing people succeed in starting their own business. Let us know if you have any questions. Also, if you know anyone that might be interested in starting their own t-shirt business, we’d be very grateful if you let them know about the site.  Have a great week!