Welcome back to part two of our series with WRLDINVSN. If you missed part one check out
the link in the description below. In this video we learn more about the in-depth details
of what it takes when launching your own apparel line. Nicholas and Marlon open up about funding,
selling online and more. Before we get started, go ahead and subscribe to our channel and click
on that bell icon, that way you never miss new content just like this. Our first video we learned
a lot about the heart and soul of WRLDINVSN and so this video I want just more information
about the how to's of running a business and if you could just share some of your insight.
And the first thing i want to talk about is sometimes you gotta have money to make money and
you have shared often about how much money you had when you started and how you grew your line
so can you just share with us about how to do that? If you could give advice to someone? We
suggest trying two methods. So we started off with 12 shirts and $120 and we literally just flipped
it. You know $120 to $240 to $500 to $1000. And it was all trial and error as we got bigger and
wanted to produce more items we had pre-drops. Where basically we would have our family members
pre-buy the whole collection we would basically use their money to buy the whole collection.
They'll get all the items at a discounted rate and then we'll still have items left over to sell
for profit to make money. Our top customers, mainly family members, were actually paying
for the collections to get done and they got the merchandise at a discounted rate. So they were
happy and then they funded the actual collection and then we made money from it. So break that down
for me. You had the pre-drop, how many shirts did you sell and then how many were you able to buy?
It was a bundle. It had to be like 10 shirts and 4 pairs of shorts and they gave us, I wanna say like
$500, $300, yeah but it was a little couple of people so just yeah probably 10 to 15 people
that allowed us to just buy everything. Yeah so we actually didn't come out of pocket with
nothing. They invested in us because they were already going to get it anyway too.
So they were able to invest in our business and get product at a discounted rate. So when you
guys first started 10 years ago with this, it was only the two of you. And now you've expanded to
30 employees you mentioned. So how did you know when it was time to get help?
It's just like the day-to-day operations. So having to print orders, ship orders,
that's something you got to do every day. Like fold t-shirts and pick up boxes from the print
shop. That's like something that anybody could do. So what we notice is like the
things that we needed to do for the company, that's what we had to focus on. Once we just
mapped out the actual tasks that that's what you should be doing, that's what you should be doing,
which is what nobody else could do. You just need to focus on that only and like the things that
anybody could do as in ship an order, or print an order, or bring you know an order to the post
office. We knew it was time to hide somebody for just those day-to-day operations. We literally
can't do everything. We literally started when Nick was sawing these tags on. Yeah Nick was
sewing them on, I was cutting them and folding them. And we was packaging and shipping it out but
like if we want to become big, if we want to you know reach 10,000 people. It's no way possible,
that we have to realize that we can't do this by ourselves. I want to talk a little bit more about
choosing where to sell? And part of your business structure has been doing pop-ups. So why did you
decide to do that and when might be a good time for someone to look into doing their own pop-ups?
I would say for us it was just about putting out product like selling as much as we literally can.
And nobody else can sell our brand better than us, at that time. Maybe other people can, you know
train them up, but we know our brand. We know our products. So we felt that growing it, we needed
to go out there and actually tell people about it. And I feel like as we were doing pop-up shops, we
became more of a tangible feeling. We were able, you know, to match our message online with the
person that you was actually meeting. And actually be able to meet our audience, you know, instead of
being online and seeing you know just a name come through and where they're purchasing from. We're
actually seeing people that want to support our brand. Who they are what they're already wearing.
Before you could go online, we always recommend just going out there and just start selling
your brand on the streets. Like you got to get on the streets first. Do you have an opinion about
the difference between selling physically versus online? We do kiosks right now. So we have kiosks
that's in the mall and it's just more effective for us. We don't have to pay light bill. We don't
have to pay wi-fi. All we pay is for the rent, the team members, and for the merchandise. And we're
already around people that's coming to the mall to buy clothes. So it already puts us in position
to make that sale. It's short leases, we go only three month leases. Which give us time to say if
we want to stay here or go somewhere else. So we do the kiosk structure, But i'm gonna say
why i'm on the digital side of like things is because there's only a certain amount of people
you could check out at the kiosk at that time. You know, we could sell 2,000 shirts in an hour other
than like the kiosk. You can't hold nowhere near 2,000 shirts. You'd be restocking 30 times a day.
You can't carry 2,000 shirts at a mall kiosk. You know what i mean? So it's only a certain amount of
money you can actually make in that time span of being there. So with the digital, with the online
space, it's literally unlimited. Like people could go on there as long as you have product. Now I
also want to talk about doing drops because that is also a part of your business structure here.
And we saw you drop a live shirt the other day and it just like exploded and blew all of our minds.
So tell us about that. So yeah lately we've been we've been dropping every Wednesdays and Saturdays
and that's just to continue as we build this audience. We build the audience off of selling
one or two items and gaining a massive amount of people. Now they're, you know, it's like they want
the next follow-up album. We're putting out uh new merchandise for these people because they're
hungry for and they want and they want to continue to tell people oh look what's new I got. They got
everything already so it's time for them to get the V2 merchandise. Do you feel like doing drops
is a better scenario than doing the traditional - here's the spring collection and then we let the
products run for a couple of months? So i'm not going to say that drops work better than that.
Because we always testing like you just never get away from testing. And I was actually thinking
about that today. Like how differently would it be if you just did one drop in that one month
and then you just, you know, did some advertising campaigns for that collection. And see how it
goes. We have a cap on it, you know, if you did a collection or something you maybe could just keep
on, you know, printing those items throughout that month. And just allowing people to continuously
to order. You know it might be different. And then also would just advertise the campaigns. You could
probably let your campaigns extend a little bit longer. But the thing i do like about drops, we
get to always create content. Like you know, we're a brand. We get to always have something that we
doing. So it just keep people, just involved. Now let's talk a little bit about growth. And
as you have expanded as much as you have, how do you manage to keep your brand integrity
while continuing to grow? We are obviously hands-on, for sure. Like we are very involved with
just rules or how we want things very particular. Double checking everything,
making sure we're not sending out stuff with holes, and making sure if we do have an issue
that we address the issue properly. When we do things like a pre-order if we know something's,
like there's an issue going on with a package, instead of waiting for the customer to hit us up,
we'll initiate. We'll go call them, we'll go email them first. So that we can let them know instead
of having them worry. And i think that we built up a loyal customer base doing things like that.
We just take care of the little things and we take care of our customers.
We hold ourselves accountable and we just do good business, like with just everybody.
So I say those are the things that we do hold ourselves to, what keeps, you know, the brand
integrity. If someone's out there watching this and they're wanting to start their own business
or their own shirt line, what are kind of three points that you want to give them from the stuff
you've learned? I always say this, invest. And it don't have to just be with money. I mean
you don't have to just invest money. Invest time. Invest in yourself. Invest in knowledge. Invest in
your friends. Invest in your family. Continue to get knowledge, continue to listen to things like
podcasts. Continue to seek out mentors. Continue to, you know, read books. Like you're gonna have
to get some knowledge behind what you're trying to do, for sure. And then my last thing would be
your environment. Like who you surround yourself with. Like what you're listening to, what y'all
talking about all the time. You know it's okay to talk about things that sports and stuff. You
don't have to be serious every time, but like who you ultimately surround yourself with is
who you become. And I think if you want to become something, you need to hang around those things.
Well for me, i'm going to say for one, just start. Like start doing something. Like if
you want to read a book, just start by reading a book. Tomorrow, today, right now - just start.
The second thing will be, don't be afraid to fail. But also learn from your mistakes. And learn from
other people's mistakes too. And then my last thing would just be, be consistent. And that's
one of the hard things that people do. Because you could start off with fire power, you know,
what i mean? And then you could just go down. So it's like, continue to just be consistent. I want
to thank WRLDINVSN so much for being here today. They gave out so much great information. Please
show them lots of love. You can head over to their channel and subscribe to it here on youtube. I'll
leave a link to that in the description along with all their socials so you can follow them there.
Yeah this has been just really informative information here. So just thank you so much for
opening up and sharing all that. Hey thank you and once again I'm Marlon Watts with WRLDINVSN. I'm
Nicholas Clark. Thank you guys, WRLDINVSN BELLA+CANVAS . We out here
in Los Angeles, having a great time. And we're going to give a shout out to Aria,
I'ma shout out to my daughter. Thank you ari. Shout out to New Orleans man. Shout out to
New Orleans and let's just keep being great and iIneed everybody to trust in their vision. We out