Austinite Creates Radical Girl Clothing Line

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

[Music]

There are a couple of questions that I hear over and over. I recently did a Facebook Live conversation with an online book club, had a great little chat and answered questions from people. And one of the first questions, here's how it was phrased, this came from April in New York City. And April said, "I feel like everything's been done already. How can you really find a unique idea that isn't copying something?" Well, my perspective when I hear a question like that is to deconstruct it a bit and say, "Okay, well, actually in the first place, why do you need to find a unique idea?" There are very few completely unique, never been done before ideas.

But I know people wonder about this because they're thinking about saturation. They're thinking, "Oh, if somebody else is doing this, or if there's a bunch of people doing this, then surely there's not room for me." Well, welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Every day I'm telling a different story of someone who starts a side hustle. The goal is to teach through storytelling.

And in today's episode, the lesson should be pretty clear, okay? Because speaking of market saturation, speaking of something that's been done before, how about T-shirts? Do you know a few companies that make T-shirts? Yeah, T-shirts have been done a lot, okay? But yet in today's story, you're gonna hear about someone who just started her own fashion line on a shoestring budget.

She's not selling shoestrings, by the way, but, you know, T-shirts. And she's making a profit right away, more than $1,000 a month. She's also able to maintain the second income as she changes jobs and relocates from Oregon to Texas. Okay, so don't be hung up on a unique idea. Just listen to this story and ask yourself, what might you be able to do?

Whether it's unique or not, how can you create a product or service that people will want to pay for? That story's coming up right after this quick thank you to our sponsor. [Music]

Bree Cruikshank never asked for permission for much of anything. Although residing far from the catwalks in fashion districts of New York City, she had a love of retail and clothing. And geography is no longer a barrier in these things.

The internet has completely flipped the fashion design business on its head, but would have felt impossible not long ago, starting your own clothing line without spending much money, is now commonplace for budding fashionistas the world over. Bree has built up a successful side hustle using the internet as her only marketing channel, all while based out of Austin, Texas. But wait, let's go back to the beginning of her side hustle story, because she was actually living in Portland, Oregon and working for one of the world's largest clothing companies, Nike, in their retail sector. The Nike slogan, "Just do it," is known the world over, but the tagline wasn't something that resonated in the work she was doing. Bree spent her nine to five feeling burnout and unfulfilled.

A few months into 2017, Bree and a few of her friends were brainstorming a few ideas while drinking cheap wine at a party. With the dissatisfaction of her day job firmly in mind, the idea for a side hustle began to hatch. That brainstorming session gave birth to a fashion concept, something built with purpose and profits in mind. She would call it Radical Girl Gang, or RGG, an online t-shirt and fashion company dedicated to women's empowerment. RGG would reflect the values and beliefs that Bree held and the brand would be an extension of herself.

This is clearly evident in the way she validated her idea. Although the concept came about after half a bottle of that cheap wine, she was already confident it could work. You see, a short time earlier, Bree and a few of her friends had printed off some t-shirts, sold them for charity, and raised $4,000 for Planned Parenthood. That validation, coupled with her insider knowledge of the retail fashion industry, gave her the confidence to move forward. The first step was to come up with some initial designs, and she knew there was no need to get too radical here.

She kept her first batch to just five designs. Since she and her friends were the target demographic, she brainstormed t-shirt ideas that they'd want to wear themselves. To keep costs down, Bree found a t-shirt printer who was willing to work with small batches. This can be a challenge because to print a t-shirt requires having a physical screen laid over the shirt and painted with special paint. A small run requires a manufacturer to start and stop the process, switching screens and colors.

It can also be relatively expensive to produce your first run because you have to create that screen. However, the more you print, the lower your price will be over time. Radical Girl Gang's first batch of t-shirts cost a few hundred dollars, then the screen printing for them about the same. So to launch the entire business costs less than $1,000, or about half of what you'd pay for the cheapest Louis Vuitton handbag. By the way, that is true.

I had to fact check that, actually. I saw that in my notes and I was like, is that true? Does a Louis Vuitton handbag really cost $2,000? And apparently it does, maybe you knew that, but I don't actually have a whole set of Louis Vuitton handbags in my closet. I mean, I have about half a dozen, but that's it.

All right, back on track, many of Radical Girl Gang's initial customers were friends of Bree's, but it didn't take long to build up word of mouth and develop the following. Her target market of 20-something women are active on social media, especially Instagram. So allowing for the brand to stay front of mind and attract new customers using high-quality fashion shots was one of Bree's main strategies. Around this time, though, she experienced a bump in the road, or perhaps let's call it an opportunity. She was offered a job with an athletic clothing startup based out of Austin, Texas.

Radical Girl Gang was starting well, but it couldn't pay all her bills, and the job at Nike wasn't getting any better. So she decided to take the job and relocate halfway across the country. Now, for some businesses, this would be a crippling move, but since there is no retail location, it's an online-only business, Bree was able to keep RGG almost exactly the same and continue to run the operation out of her spare bedroom, just as she always had. The only thing that slowed things down a bit was less available time. But the point is that this new brand was able to stand on its own even during a time of major change in Bree's life.

Once she settled into her new job, she had more time to dedicate to her after-hours work. With the renewed focus came some new milestones. She's done her first public speaking event, she was able to generate $1,000 in sales in a single day, and she's found more time to promote the business through its one and only distribution channel, its website. This small online fashion label is now generating $1,500 in profit each month. So I hope you don't miss the lesson.

The lesson is that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of T-shirt companies out there, but by focusing on a specific demographic with a specific message, Bree was able to find a sizable customer base, and she's just getting started. This is just over a year in. $1,500 a month isn't enough to quit her job, but that's okay, because in her words, she loves her new job, she finds it stimulating, and she appreciates that it offers a steady paycheck with benefits and the knowledge that her 401(k) is safe and sound. She views her biggest challenge as accepting the fact that she doesn't know the final destination where she's going with the brand. But she's very happy to have set out on the journey.

[Music]

So again, back to saturation. Back to that question I had on the Facebook Live conversation. I feel like everything's been done already, how can you really find a unique idea? To respond with a question, how many T-shirt companies are out there? How many coffee shops are in your city?

I'm an author, I write books about improving your life. There are a lot of other books out there about improving your life. But yet I've been able to be successful in doing that. Brie starts this project, and it's profitable right from the beginning. Perhaps not every coffee shop in your city is profitable, but a lot of them are.

They continue to stay in business year after year. So the key really is giving people something that they want, truly finding a match between what you can offer and what they want to pay for, and differentiation of some kind, okay? And the differentiation can be a lot of different things. In this case, Brie is really focused on her target market, and she's found a way to create messages that resonate with that market. All right, so think about that.

Ask yourself what you can make, and don't worry if somebody else has made it before. It's okay. Thank you for listening today. Wherever you are in the world, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Our show notes, including links to radical girl gangs, website, and social media, are at sidehustleschool.com/532.

I hope you have a wonderful day, and I hope you'll join me again tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. [Music]