068
5 min 59 sec

Alcohol Fueled Idea Sells Over 1,500 Shirts in Less Than a Year

After a night at the bar, three friends come up with an idea to add huge pockets to the front of t-shirts.
Business Savvy Fashion Product Unique Ideas

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What It's About

Three friends decide to create a unique shirt that they can carry beers and puppies in after a night out.

Business Model
Product
Skills Required
Logistics, Design, Marketing
Complexity
Medium
Profit Potential
Medium

Words of Wisdom

To keep costs low, Jake, John and Alex decided to take on many of the initial tasks like building the website and taking pictures of their tees themselves in order to spend their money on perfecting their tees.

Not everything looked amazing when they first started, but they were able to sell shirts and move forward with what they had. Over time, they've gotten a lot better at graphic design, web design, and photography.

Fun Fact

The trio spent between $2,000-$3,000 testing different styles, fabrics, cuts, pocket sizes, materials and manufacturers for their shirts.

Less than a year later after that fateful drunken evening at the bar, Jake and his Pocket Pioneers have sold more than 1,500 shirts!

Notes from Chris

Episode 68

Alot of ideas come from spending the evening with friends and alcohol—but many of them may not seem as interesting once the hangover arrives in the morning. Once in a while, though, an idea sticks... and the one you'll hear about in this episode turned into a hustle that's produced $35,000 in sales and counting.

The three friends known as the Pocket Pioneers have plenty of stories detailing their escapades. There’s even a story on their website about smuggling beef jerky into a concert using the tees.

They clearly have a lot of fun with this side hustle, but it’s also been a legit learning experience for Jake, John, and Alex. Through this experience they’ve learned about website development, marketing, supply chain management, finance, intellectual property and pretty much everything you could imagine new hustlers need to know.

In fact, they say that the whole thing has been one big lesson on entrepreneurship.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

SEE ALSO:

Inspiration is good; inspiration combined with action is better. Now get back to work!

Yours in the revolution,

Chris Guillebeau

Resources

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Quote of the Day
"We started by asking a fashion teacher at a local college, and she gave us some leads for local manufacturers. Each person got us closer to our answer, even if they couldn't answer it themselves."
—Jake Kehlenbeck #SideHustleSchool

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To infinity and beyond,

Chris Guillebeau