Sophomores Stitch Together Custom T-Shirts

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

When two college students look to start a business, they roll up their sleeves and create a custom T-shirt company. They do this totally off the cuff. Now as someone who doesn't wear a lot of T-shirts, I am often surprised at the number of successful T-shirt designers and manufacturers out there. It is a pretty common business model, but it seems there is room for a lot of players. I was trying to think what else is in this department, personalized journals or just journals of some kind, some kind or another journals are also in this department of, wow, do we really need more of them?

But yet if it isn't broke, what's that old saying? If it isn't broke, you might as well sell it. Welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This story takes us all the way back to the early aughts.

That would be the years of 2000 to 2009, but it's a business that remains relevant and resilient today. Sophomores stitch together custom T-shirts. That's what we're calling it. And the story is coming up after this shout out to our sponsor. [Music]

In 2001, Rishi Narayan was a sophomore at Michigan State University.

He'd been interested in starting some kind of business and he was struggling with his chemical engineering degree. His childhood friend, Ryan Gregg, a civil engineering major, felt the same. After brainstorming ideas, they landed on the concept of building dorm room lofts. And managed to nab a couple of builds quite quickly. But they soon realized this idea had one huge problem.

Students only moved into dorms once a year. That meant the business was really only viable for one week a year. And they needed something to keep them busy the other 51. They scratched that idea and decided to move on to something else. But inspiration for a unique and interesting second business just wasn't coming.

So they decided to settle on T-shirt printing. There was no real reason other than the fact that everyone they knew wore T-shirts. So they thought, why not? And their hook would be custom prints. They would transfer any design that someone came up with onto a shirt.

They decided to call it A1 screen printing. They figured they'd come up first in the phone book that way. And remember, this was 2001 when phone books were still a thing. The best part was they didn't have to fork over any money because their plan was to use a local printer and simply act as the middleman. They were the only custom T-shirt printing game anywhere on campus, which meant business came fast.

College friends who ran university organizations and often needed shirts for members or special events became their first customers. Rishi and Ryan were still studying full-time and arranging the T-shirt printing on their breaks. But they took additional time to hustle and find business wherever they could. They would go the extra mile to meet other students wherever and whenever they wanted just to get a new sale. Even during those frantic early days, they started to see more of a vision for their little business.

They felt they could become the go-to place for college students to have T-shirts printed cost effectively. And they weren't the only ones to see that vision because students from several other colleges began to take notice. As business increased, A1 screen printing found themselves outgrowing their original setup. But as luck would have it, an opportunity presented itself in the form of a broken down car. And that car was Rishi's.

He drove around in an old, banged up vehicle that needed towing more than a few times. On one of his many trips to the mechanic, the tow truck driver happened to mention that he had a screen printing setup he was looking to sell. Given the current state of A1 screen printing, Rishi and Ryan jumped at the chance. They bought the equipment and set up their first official production line in Ryan's garage. This drastically increased their production capacity.

More production meant more customers. And more customers spread the word about their business. Rinse and repeat. By the time they graduated and decided to pursue their business full time, they'd already outgrown the garage production line. So far, they'd had great success with their own school and a few others nearby.

But in order to really grow the business, they knew they'd have to branch out. So first, they purchased another local t-shirt printer, this one with an actual warehouse space. That business was called Underground Printing. And they liked the name so much, they rebranded their existing operation to match it. Then they introduced another new strategy.

Rishi and Ryan knew that if they could get official licensing rights for the universities, that would enable them to open stores on campuses and literally become the go-to t-shirt company for that particular institution. Once again, they started with the Michigan schools and nailed down their offer, dialed in best practices and honed their negotiation skills. When that proved successful, they repeated the same model in different states. And that's when things really started stitching together. Over the next decade, Underground Printing grew in leaps and bounds.

So much so that what started as a ragtag operation between two childhood friends, now has a presence in over a hundred colleges and universities. It's also transformed into a multi-million dollar business. They've shown that you don't need to enter the corporate world in suits and ties to make serious money. Wearing t-shirts will do just fine. [Music]

Well, I once gave a talk called Boring Businesses.

I think it was like boring businesses that make a lot of money. And that's what I think about with this one. Not to say that t-shirts are boring, but it's just kind of, you know, you could say it's kind of basic, but yet everyone wears t-shirts. And when I said earlier, I don't wear a lot of t-shirts, I just mean branded t-shirts. I don't wear a lot of shirts with logos or writing on them.

But obviously a lot of people do. And especially with this college and university market, you know, with all kinds of clubs and such, clubs, fraternities, sororities, you know, everything else, sports teams. Well, that is a big business. And so maybe the lesson is if you don't have a passion for something, if you're like, I don't know, what idea could I pursue? Maybe you should just do the first thing that comes to mind or the first thing that makes sense.

You don't necessarily have to be inspired. You don't necessarily have to do something that you're incredibly passionate about. Because in building this business, they essentially became passionate about it. It became passionate about serving these different groups and learning how to grow the business beyond just, you know, the people that they knew, and then beyond just their local area and then to other universities across the country and so on. So you don't have a passion, just start doing something.

That's why I tend to say inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Thank you so much for listening. Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/12681268. I'll be back again tomorrow. We've got a classroom episode coming up, another couple of stories next week, questions and answers, and so much more.

I'm really glad you're out there. Take care of yourself. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]