I just remember hearing that first sound, the cash register sound
and saying: “This is going to be the beginning of something really cool!”
My name is Joe Kim and I run a store called PAL Campaign
Which stands for Peace and love campaign.
For my full time job, I’m actually a graphic design teacher at a private Catholic high
school.
And the PAL Campaign is a creative side hustle that I hope to continue to grow
To a full time job.
I think right now is a really interesting and opportune time, because anybody with the
desire to design can put up something with a relatively low startup cost and have their
own business.
So in some sense with designing and with PAL Campaign, especially with what Printful offers,
I feel like I’ve already reached that dream.
To see orders come in from different parts of the world, to have someone say “I want
to buy something that you’ve made” - that feeling never gets old.
I originally started PAL Campaign many years ago in 2008.
A worker at my church was going to a conference, and this was the time when church t-shirts
for conferences were really bad.
Many people could argue they're still pretty bad.
So she knew I was in art school and asked me if I could design a t-shirt.
I reluctantly said yes.
Then after the conference, I heard that the group was bombarded by other groups saying
“Where did you get that t-shirt?
How can I order one?”
And then the students started wearing the shirts on weekends, parties, and over and
over again.
So the shirts weren’t just relegated to the pajama drawer.
And I knew there was a market for well-designed Christian t-shirts.
I think it’s really important for new (store) owners to find a specific niche that they’re
a part of or really passionate about, to be successful with Printful or any business for
that matter.
Instead of doing something like streetwear, because there are many stores doing streetwear
and doing it really well, maybe it’s streetwear for people in a city that you love.
So find a specific tribe, a loyal tribe in whatever it is - whether it’s people who
like baseball or I think if you really target that there’s a genuine authenticity to what
you’re bringing to the table, and it’s just going to make the process a whole lot
easier.
Once I stopped the store and then re-started it with Printful, I was able to not worry
about inventory and shipping myself.
Having come from a time when I had to store everything in my one bedroom, sleep in the
living room, ship out things myself and all the time that it took, to now only getting
a nice little ka-ching! sound when I get a sale, using Shopify, allowing it to just take
care of the programming, that peace of mind and having everything integrated with Shopify
payments, with the tax system, the shipping...
This has allowed me to focus more on the creative side of things.
There’s a lot of things I wish the old Joe knew about business and designing.
This is kind of boring, but a little bit more about the legal side of things.
I have an artistic mindset, so a part of me just wants to create, and design, and not
worry about what kind of taxes I owe, or what is a resellers permit, and how it can help
me lower my costs with vendors.
Some of the basic legal things I wish I had known when I started.
I also wish within Printful, from starting two years ago to now, that I had utilized
the resources more.
I didn’t really start reading the blogs until a few months ago, and it’s just such
a wealth of information.
There have been a few obstacles I’ve had to overcome.
I think one is just being able to dedicate the time and concern that a store like this
needs.
So many people start a t-shirt store or have an idea, but they just realistically don’t
have the time or they lose interest after a few months.
I think consistency is the key to the game.
Another obstacle has been the fact that it’s a one man show.
The beauty of Printful is that it’s something one person can do.
I’m the lead designer, the customer service agent, the marketer, the Instagram person.
This has the benefit of you getting to control everything, but the challenge is that you’re
doing it all yourself.
Because the t-shirt and apparel industry is so visually based, Instagram has been my number
one marketing tactic or sales tool.
Instagram has a certain level of insights that they provide along with Shopify, so I’ve
been able to use it for most of my marketing, in terms of finding different groups to follow
which will expose my company to them.
I’ve dabbled with facebook ads, email marketing, but Instagram has given me the most return
on investment.
People gravitate towards authenticity and transparency.
I always had the tendency to pretend, trying to make PAL campaign seem like it was a big
company with many people.
I would always use “we are excited to introduce”, when in reality it was just me running a one
man show.
When I started transitioning to something that one person, one designer who is passionate
about this industry is doing, I noticed there was a lot more authentic engagement.
And it’s easier to reach out to people as well.
Even with social media influencers, there’s a much bigger desire for other people to help
you out, as opposed to try and create a business transaction.
For anyone who has a desire or an interest to start their own store I would say to just
go for it.
I think too often we get stuck in analysis paralysis, and we want it to be perfect or
we want to be fully ready before we start.
But if that’s the case we would never really start.