How to Start a Clothing Line — Making Clothing, Designing and Sales

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So you have an idea for a business and this is one of the questions that I
continue getting asked. How do you actually make product? More importantly
how you actually start a brand with little to no money? So watch this duffel
bag here represents the ideas of the world!
I'm just kidding its just a duffel bag with some products in it. But essentially
what's gonna boil down to is focusing on the products that you want to make.
Creating a brand around it and more importantly selling it through. Alright
so for instance so you have an idea for a crochet bikini bottom's. Perfect idea
to start a business around you're gonna want to figure out what the cost is
gonna be. And more importantly the logistics to actually getting a nice
quality yarn and since this is handmade. How do you keep it consistent? Say you
wanted to start a yoga bag line right. You're gonna figure out how the cut n' sew
gonna work sourcing and dyeing labeling. Cut n' sew
pants, you want stretchy pants you want a certain fabric all of that's gonna
require your thought process. Water bottles same thing! Nice blouses again
hats a little bit easier same concept! Maybe you want to make some backpacks?
A little bit beefier so that is essentially how you come up with product
ideas and actually make them! Alright so I'll catch you guys on the next video!
No just kidding anyways no but I really want to discuss is what goes into
actually making the product. How you can design and use different resources to
create your graphic design or even your apparel designs your tech packs and all
the things that you're going to need to go to manufacturing. And then more
importantly how you can start selling and shipping your products as soon as
they're sold online. Alright so let's jump into the first
part which is actually making products.
Making products and knowing how products are created is going to be crucial to
you guys to be able to understand the cut n' sew process. Now the cut n sew
sew process is a little bit more complicated than it is say just buying a
wholesale blank. Alright so for instance BELLA+CANVAS has some great apparel for
anybody that's looking to just buy wholesale garments re-label and
brand as their own and for example some of the stuff back here are some of the
products that they have in their arsenal of offering. This is more of like a
hooded sweatshirt you can find the bomber jackets. A bunch of different
sweats and garments that you guys can use to actually produce your brand. So
more specifically you're able to simply take the label rip it of. Simple as that
and then attach your own labels to here. Right so you'll design your label and
then you'll stitch it onto here and you'll screen print your design or
whatnot. And this looks like it's yours it's your own branded product right. So
there's no other labels on the inside other than the one right there
and you guys are good to go and you're good to start selling as your own brand.
Now that's the easiest way but if you'd like to make your own designs and
products what I'm gonna want to show you guys is a very quick recap right here.
As in terms of what it takes to actually cut and sew a t-shirt but it's
gonna be the similar process to creating whether you want to do a sweatshirt or
whether you want to do a duffel bag. Everything plays the same role it's the
same process the same thought process and the same processes are involved with
creating a shirt that it is to creating a bag. The first thing that you're gonna
want to really think about is the pattern and the design that comes into
it. Alright so that's the first thing you got to think about is how how does this
shirt or how does this product look different than it is on the market from
there you put it into a drawing from the drawing you take it over to the CAD
program which actually creates the pattern. And in this CAD program the
whole thing is designed the shapes and the elements and all
the math that goes into making sure it's all stitched up and it's not going to be
crooked it's all created in that CAD design. And a designer involved with they
have some knowledge with how those things work. From there they take it over
to the plotter printer the plotter printer prints out this big sheet of
paper and that big sheet of paper is what its gonna be used to actually cut
the design. Once the design is printed on that big piece of paper they take it
over to the to the sample materials. Which is the materials that you're gonna
ideally use for your production. It's gonna be something that's gonna be very
similar if not the same thing. And you cut it up and then right after you cut
it up you'll go stitch it once they stitch it up and make sure that
everything is aligned. If there's any adjustments based on the sewer's those
adjustments will be made and now you have a finished product. And with that
finished product essentially what you're gonna do is you're gonna make sure that
it if it's gonna shrink or if it's gonna fit differently after you're actually
wearing it. You'll make those adjustments based on how somebody uses it and
somebody looks in it and then you go back to the process and restart again. So
as you can see it's a very back and forth method from drawing to cutting to
stitching to fitting to resizing and from there you have your entire line. Now
when it comes to apparel you're also gonna have to grade up and grade down.
Then when it comes to different products such as bags or anything that's one size
fits all type of things. You don't have to necessarily grade patterns unless
you're gonna make like small kids versions and that's a different. Then you
take a similar approach but nonetheless that's how you make products. And
essentially what I tell people when they're when they're wanting to create
their own products is that you really want to budget out at least a thousand
to four thousand to create your products. I just condensed the entire process into
something that's very easy for you guys to understand now it's even more
important to understand that to start a line it's even easier to just take a
blank garment attach your labels and your branding and start creating the
marketing message around your brand. Now if you're a graphic artist watching this
video you you've already designed all kinds of stuff and you have such genius
ideas that I know a lot of people do and a lot of people watching that I
speak to you guys are amazing with your artwork and you just have to believe in
it. All right that's that's the biggest
thing that I see from a lot of artists is that they don't believe in themselves.
So if you're a graphic artist wanting to start a clothing line actually go
through the production process go through the sales process and you'll be
on the right foot. If you're not sure where to find graphic artists there are
some great resources such as design crowd and Fiverr and Upwork and all
kinds of other ones where you can connect to hundreds of thousands of
freelance designers across the entire world. All right so this is a challenge
that I always bring out to everybody that I meet with. Is start working on
actually building this line in your brand. All right because that's the only
way that you guys are gonna learn obviously you're gonna want to make sure
that you're not spending thousands of dollars in order to create designs
you're gonna want to take the minimum viable product approach. Which is what I
just discussed right now making sure that if you can use a wholesale blank.
Using a wholesale blank to build your brand your marketing your website what
the vision and mission is. And then moving into creating different
collections with minimal investment in each product. Getting some pre-sales and
pre-orders and from there you can start building along. Investing in the right
places where you know it's going to pay off. One of the fastest ways to figure
out where you fit in the market is to attend events that are filled with your
demographic. So say for instance you want to start a t-shirt brand the sells
directly to the sneaker heads. Right because maybe you're a sneaker head and
you love it and you think that you can make some money and actually selling
designs that are interesting to the people that collect sneakers. The fastest
way to figure out if your designs are actually going to match that market is
to attend an event. Events are gonna be one of the biggest tell-alls of who's
actually going to adapt your product. What it's going to do for you is
enormous it's going to create a better understanding of that market. And then
you'll be able to use that too in order to create that same message on your
website on your social media and everything else. You'll know what people
are looking for what messages resonate with them and you'll be able to build
your online marketing campaign around all the information that you learned in
a real life event. All right and more importantly you get to network with
people influencers that are there people that you're gonna want to meet that are
gonna help promote the brand online. Are all gonna be at the events that you're
attending. All right so now the last and final tip in this video and I want to
say one of the most important is in figuring out the delivery method of your
brand and products. All right so essentially is how are you
gonna get the product that you created to the person that ordered it online or
the person that bought it at the event? All right so this is gonna be important
for you to figure out before you launch the brand if you're selling bags or
other weirdly shaped different products one of the things that you're gonna run
into is the cost of shipping. It's not gonna be as cheap as folding up a shirt
into a very nice size and shipping it for a flat rate through USPS. Different
bags such as is this a little bit bulkier you might have to fold it a little bit
and put it into a bigger poly bag type of material. That's a Centon it's a lot
of the times that's the cheapest method. Because you don't want customers having
to pay 30 bucks for shipping right? So you always want to look into how are you
going to package up your product in order for it to be shipped easily and
least expensively. That way you could even offer free shipping on some
products because you know that you're paying a very whether it's two or three
bucks or five bucks. You're willing to eat the cost because it's something
that's more expensive it's all the decision that you're gonna have to make.
But it's gonna be a crucial one that you need to start looking into as you're
actually wrapping up the manufacturing portion of your of your process. Or
creating the products before you attend those events you're going to want to
think about how everything is going to be shipped. All right so more importantly
don't overthink it too much don't try to like create the best packaging. I mean
you could you could create the best packaging for like shipping like really
cool boxes. Those are all things that are really gonna come in handy and are gonna
kind of elevate your brand and it's things that you definitely should
consider. But to start off make sure that you just get the product there safely.
All right make sure that your process of actually shipping products is sound and
it's not be losing products in the process. Or
you're not gonna get ripped off by people that are using scam accounts.
Alright so essentially what you're gonna want to do is you're gonna want to make
sure that you find a good payment provider and then you hook it up to like
stamps.com if you're selling online and more importantly is finding a
fulfillment center if you don't have the time to ship things out yourself. All
right and fulfillment centers are essentially areas that allow you to stock
your product and they ship it out for you and they they actually have a team of
people that go in pull the product from their shelf. Put a label on it ship it to
the customer. They also handle returns for fulfillment centers just look up
online just literally go through a google search it's very easy if you find
one that's in your area that's definitely the best way to take it. That
way you know if I ever need to go down there or do an inspection. Or hey if I
ever want to just add more inventory I can communicate with the owners a lot
better. Alright so essentially these four things
that we discussed today which was in actually making products, designing
products selling that those events, and then fulfilling those orders are gonna
be the four things that you guys really need to consider when you're starting
your brand. And I don't think enough people really discuss that so I want to
make sure if you guys enjoyed this video make sure you share with a friend family
member or somebody in your community that will benefit from this information.
As you guys know I have a whole channel full of different content so I'll
continue to make more content as long as you guys continue requesting it and
continue needing answers to it. Be on the lookout for new types of
videos as well. As well as the newest playlist on my channel which is going to
be linked right here. And make sure you head on over to the johnxsantos.com
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it's the best way for you guys to get in the know where I'm gonna be what events
I'm inviting you guys out to. And what opportunities are out in the market I
send it out there first and I appreciate every single one of you guys that are on
that list and more importantly as a signal of
your gratitude I always just ask that you use the links
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entire channel. It helps fund a little bit of the
production cost that goes into creating the videos and and all the stuff that I
need in order to help you guys get the content that you need which is all free.
Alright so I appreciate it thank you guys for everything if I don't see you
at a next event I'll see you on the next video! Talk soon
bye! WAKE UP AND WIN.
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How to Start a Clothing Line — Making Clothing, Designing and Sales

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