Interested in starting a clothing company?

Jonathon Kruse is here to help. He has multiple clothing lines and a blog fully dedicated to how to start a clothing company. This interview with Kruse is a quick lesson for starting a clothing company.

If I wanted to start a clothing company today, what would I have to do?

Find artists at Emptees.com, print some shirts at Storenvy.com, and have a lot of time on your hands. I run the blog how to start a clothing company and the whole site is dedicated to this question.

Where does someone start when they are looking for a manufacturer?

Ask around. I pretty much only go by word of mouth. Storenvy.com has some amazing printing and great prices I would suggest using them.

What does it take to have a successful clothing brand?

Like in any business you just have to push through the bad times. When you are making money it’s easy. It’s those dark times it’s hard to get by.

Besides that constantly rethink your plan and learn from others.

How do you drive traffic and buyers to your site?

I do a little bit of everything. Band sponsorship, SEO, blogging, getting other sites to blog about me, sales, social networking, going to craft shows, getting into stores. The last two actually help out a lot with your online traffic. I was working on a website for Paint the Stars and they get most of their traffic from people that have seen their brand in stores and check them out online. Word of mouth is the best advertising you can get. If you can get people talking about you, that’s half the battle.

What are some mistakes you have made along your journey? What have you learned from them?

The biggest is probably printing too many shirts in the beginning. I printed my shark week shirt on 100 shirts and the quality was junk. I resent everything one time before because it was unreadable and even the second time it wasn’t great. What I advise to everyone out there is print the minimums. Yeah you get price cuts for more shirts but it’s not worth it. Just get a small amount and learn from your mistakes. You’ll find out what sells and use the capital you saved for something better.

What is the biggest project you are working on right now?

I think Shred is going to be pretty huge. We are in stores in three different continents and are talking with some big stores right now. I am really stoked about that.

Here are some of the designs from the metal clothing company Shred:

Learn more about how to start a clothing company on Jonathon’s Blog.