Raymond Lei started ooShirts, a custom t-shirt business, when he was just 16 years old. Raymond had the task of ordering t-shirts for his high school tennis club, when he became disgusted at the lack of a clear solution for his t-shirt needs. In this interview, learn how Raymond grew ooShirts, whose primary principle is efficiency, into a business with $1 million in yearly revenue.
When did you start ooShirts?
I started ooShirts when I was 16 years old. I was a sophomore in high school.
How did you come up with your business idea?
During the summer after my freshman year in high school, I went on a trip to Hangzhou, China, where I first became interested in business. During my stay there, I would walk outside and see this amazing growth of small businesses all around me. Every day, a buzzing new shop would open and replace an old dying one, and every week, the products being sold just kept getting better and better. The customers, myself included, enjoyed as they could buy more and more for less.
When I returned to my home in Cupertino, I had the task of ordering t-shirts for my high school tennis club. As I looked for a place to order from, I couldn’t find a clear solution. All existing companies were either overpriced or had untrustworthy and unfriendly websites. I was a little angered at the lack of a solution. The industry was huge (everyone wears custom t-shirts) but the businesses in it were unsatisfactory. I thought I could provide a better product to customers at a lower cost and set out to do it.
How has your business evolved since the start of your business?
There were several stages, depending on how far back you want to go. At the very start, I directly talked to other clubs at my school and sold to them. After receiving more orders, I built a website so I could take each order more efficiently. After receiving even more orders, I hired a couple employees to help me take orders so that I could focus less on operations and more on growth. Now, we’re building an automated system so that each employee can take care of $1 million in yearly revenue. So you can say we’ve become more efficient. We’ve also improved our supply chain from one supplier to twenty suppliers. I’ll discuss how this helps us later.
Have you always been entrepreneurial?
It depends on how you define entrepreneurial. I’ve always liked to do things differently. I never liked joining existing groups, and haven’t ever joined a group I didn’t create. I would always embark on my own projects fueled by my own ideas. And I liked coming up with these ideas. If that’s how you define entrepreneurial, then yes, I’ve always been entrepreneurial.
One of the things that sets ooShirts apart from your competitors is your company principles. Can you tell us about them and how they work?
Our primary principle is efficiency. We’re much more efficient than our competitors.
First, our ordering process is very streamlined. Our website allows customers to create their own t-shirt designs without manual help from our artists. They can do everything they need to do online, and submit it to us. When we receive the design, the automated order processing code we wrote lets us take care of each order quickly and accurately.
Second, we’ve set up a network of 20 printers and suppliers around the United States. This is important for several purposes. In addition to letting us get shirts to the customers faster and with lower shipping costs, it also lets us have a greater, more readily available line of products in stock.
Third, we outsource internationally. We outsource a good amount of programming and graphic design work overseas where we can get the same quality work at the fraction of the cost.
When we combine these three points, we can price our custom t-shirts at 30 to 50 percent lower cost than our competitors and still make a profit. This is the value customers are looking for, and this is the reason we’ve been growing so quickly these past couple of months.
You are student at UC Berkeley. How has being a student helped you on your entrepreneurial journey?
There are two parts to being a student. One involves academics, the other involves people. I don’t think taking academic courses helps with my business. Textbooks do not teach you how to think different; they teach you how to think the same. I don’t find learning from a textbook is helpful for me, or for any other entrepreneur. I won’t drop out. Though I am an entrepreneur, I am also human. I’ve met some truly amazing people, and want to continue building relationships here.
How do you balance school and business?
I pick the easiest classes and spend the rest of my time on my business.
What are your plans for the future of your business?
My goal is to have an average 50% month-over-month growth rate for the remaining months this year.
For more information on Raymond and ooShirts visit http://www.ooshirts.com.
Julie Barnes is the author is this post. Julie is excited to be living in Generation E – the age of the Entrepreneur. As a writer, she enjoys writing about all aspects of the entrepreneur journey. She enjoys interviewing entrepreneurs whose experience and wisdom can inspire others to follow their entrepreneurial dreams. Julie lives and works in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, KS with her husband Ron and lovable dog Hank. You can visit her site at www.julieabarnes.com. Follow Julie on Twitter at @JulieBarnesKS. Become a Facebook friend at Julie Barnes.
