The biggest thing that’s happened because of my shop,
I got to know Michael Stipe, the singer from R.E.M.
He found my shirt on Tumblr.
All of a sudden I started getting crazy notifications.
Tons of people were liking and reblogging.
I was like - what is going on right now?
And then I traced it back to Michael Stipe’s Tumblr.
I saw that and understood that I need to act quickly.
How can I get a shirt to Michael Stipe so he can wear one?
I made an image with my shirt on it that says: “Dear Michael Stipe, do you want this shirt?
If so, hit me up.”
And added my email address.
A week later I got an email from the office of Michael Stipe.
I thought “OK, someone's trolling me, but I’m going to take the risk.”
Then a few days later he sent me a picture of him wearing the shirt.
I actually befriended him because of this little shirt that I posted on Tumblr that
I thought would just be a funny thing to post.
My name is Ben Aqua, and my shop is called “Ben Aqua”.
On my shop I mostly sell shirts.
I also have a mug, and a couple of art prints.
I split my time between a lot of different things.
Mostly photography, I run a YouTube channel under my name, and I also do music.
I’m a music producer, a DJ.
I do way too much.
Doing the merch is a side hustle for me.
It’s a cool way to put my art onto actual products that people can wear.
My work tends to be about how the internet and technology influences people and our decisions,
how we live our lives.
I went to school for graphic design here in Austin at University of Texas.
I just started making these graphics with bold text as you can see.
It’s always gotten my attention.
It’s like a stop sign - you recognize it from a distance.
I want my stuff to be recognizable in the same way.
So I purposefully make the text ridiculously huge.
I went to Printful and looked at what’s the max size that I can use on this shirt.
12” x 16”?
Perfect!
I found Printful randomly on YouTube.
At the time I was getting my shirts made by a screenprinter in Austin.
I was looking on YouTube - how do I start a t-shirt company without printing everything
myself?
I had a few samples made by other companies as well.
I wanted to make sure the quality would be really good.
Out of the samples I got, Printful was by far the best one.
I still use them, I’m still behind the product.
I recommend Printful to all my friends that are in the same boat.
People who want to design have an idea, but they don’t necessarily want to mess with
printing and shipping.
Printful has relieved so many of these anxieties I have about shipping, printing, the whole
process of being a creator and having your merch.
The platform I use is Etsy.
Etsy easily integrates with Printful.
The reason I chose Etsy was really because they’re cheaper than Shopify.
I think eventually if I got more sales from my store, I could justify doing a monthly
Shopify plan.
But if you’re on a budget and want to set up something really easily with Printful,
I highly recommend Etsy.
They charge you $0.20 per product every four months, and it just renews automatically if
you want.
There’s no monthly fee.
Printful has no monthly fee either which is nice.
And I love that it integrates so seamlessly with Printful.
Set up your thing on Etsy, done.
One of the biggest hurdles for setting up my shop was getting the colors to show up
correctly on the shirts.
I was getting my samples done and expected my designs to show up on the shirts like they
did on the screen.
Sometimes they do.
A white design shows up well on a dark shirt.
Then I had a hypercolor shirt I designed.
I must have gone through four or five different sample prints, and each time I’d have to
wait for a week just to get it.
Then it wouldn't come out right.
And I was like - oh no, I have to do another sample?
But then I realized that color correction is actually one of the most important things
I would recommend doing to anybody dealing with product design.
It’s such a big thing.
Printful is really helpful with that.
You can make swatch sample shirts that have different colors with RGB values on them.
So you can go into your designs - this is what I ended up doing with my hypercolor design
- and change your colors to how you want them to show up on a white shirt or how you want
them to show up on a dark shirt.
After that was done, I had more confidence in my product.
Printful does well at printing stuff once you get your color correction done.
I think photography is one of the best ways to market your product.
Especially if it’s something that’s very particular to a community - if it’s athletics
or clubwear.
Think about where these people might actually wear your product.
If you can, go to that location with a model, hire a photographer if you have the coin,
or give them a free shirt if you don’t have the coin.
Get people involved who will help you market your brand to that particular community.
Photography can do that.
One of my favorite features about Printful is the mockup generator.
It’s a free way to create a nice graphic that you can use on your actual shop.
Now there are even 3D mockups which take it to another level - you can get your design
on actual people and it looks like they’re wearing the shirt.
So even if you’re not a photographer, you can use the mockup generator for free and
create high quality images to use on your shop.
You can start selling basically immediately.
I try to post my work on a lot of different types of social media so that somebody, Michael
Stipe, or someone’s dog, says “I want that shirt!
I want that on a mug now!”
Sending your stuff to influencers or people that you think are cool.
Give them some free stuff.
You don’t necessarily have to post a hundred photos, or get a professional shoot done.
Just let them do their own thing.
Whenever I’ve given away a free product to somebody that has clout, I always sell
a lot more.
My biggest piece of advice, and this is what I tell anybody who’s creating - just be
yourself.
You are your product.
If you’re doing YouTube videos or a store with Printful, your personality is going to
be your main selling point.
That’s what I think a lot of people want to see.
If you’re spending time trying to be somebody else, just try to stop doing that.
Unless it’s some funky character you’ve created, in which case - take it to the next
level.
Learn from your mistakes and you’ll learn more about yourself as a person.
Which is really what I think the bigger picture is.
Be yourself and the rest will follow.