I Tried Starting A Custom T-Shirt Business In 7 Days

This is a t-shirt printer or some may call it a money printing machine. And with one, I'm going to try to start a t-shirt printing business in seven days. I'll be going over the whole process from designing to printing to advertising with people reportedly making tens of thousands of dollars. Let's see how much money I can make. The first step is to figure out how to print t-shirts. There are several popular methods, each with its own pros and cons. You've got screen printing where ink is pushed with a squeegee through a mesh screen. There's direct to garment or DTG, which sprays ink directly onto garments like an inkjet printer. And then there's direct film or DTF, where designs are printed on a special film coated with adhesive powder and heat pressed onto t-shirts. I plan to serve all kinds of clients at the start from everyday people to businesses, events and more. Their orders can vary greatly in design, fabric and quantity. So it's important I choose a method that offers the most flexibility for my clients. I'm vibing with DTF. It can print designs in any color on many different fabrics from cotton to synthetics. Unlike screen printing, DTF's low cost per print allows for small batches and customization. Its prints are also more durable in the wash than DTG. It's decided I'm DTF. Not that kind. I did some searching and found a DTF apparel printer from X-Tool. It seems pretty popular in the industry and easy to use. With one click, it can not only print designs, but automatically apply, shake and bake adhesive powder onto film for you using its shaker oven accessory. Normally, you'd have to do all that separately, so it's a game changer. The printer also has 24-7 auto clean to prevent clogging, making it low maintenance. Thank goodness for beginners like me. I'm going to get the all-in-one bundle, which includes the printer, shaker oven, as well as an air purifier. This will let me print anywhere without having to vent fumes outside a window or garage door. I'm going to add a heat press as well so I can transfer my prints onto T-shirts. In total, it's looking like everything will cost me $8,318 to get started. For all that I'm getting, the upfront investment isn't too bad compared to other DTF printers or printing methods. The question is, will I make it all back? There's only one way to find out. The equipment arrived and it wasn't playing. It came in several big heavy boxes, 357 pounds in total. I had to take out furniture from my room to make space. It took a few steps to set things up, but eventually I got everything unboxed and ready to go. Before printing my first T-shirt, I printed a test image to see if my ink was flowing properly. What should come out are solid bars and a series of strip lines for each ink color. My white ink came out great, but my color inks, well, they were nowhere to be found. I tried cleaning the printheads and again and again, but no color was coming up. Did my $8,000 machine ship busted? I panicked a bit. Gave up for several hours, then scoured the printer's FAQ to find that it kind of did. There might have been a minor deviation between the printhead and the ink stack due to transportation. So I ran an ink stack calibration and ink priming as instructed and printed a test image one more time with my fingers crossed. And out of nowhere, there was red, then yellow, then blue, then black. I kept cleaning and printing test images until finally all the strip lines were looking clean. The machine was ready to print my first T-shirt. Using X-Tool software, I loaded in an SVG file of a design and hit print. It immediately got to work, laying down the color layer first, followed by a coat of white ink. This white layer acts as the underbase, which will make the colors pop once the design is heat pressed onto a T-shirt. After that, the film entered the shaker oven, where it applied adhesive powder to the film and shook it like it owed me money. It then fed the film inside and started baking it like a cake. I waited for a few minutes and eventually it came out from the bottom. Oh, it's looking fresh, but the back, something doesn't look right. According to the FAQ, the back is supposed to look uniform, not grainy like mine. It seemed like my shaker oven's temperature was set too low. So I increased it from 80 degrees Celsius to 120 degrees Celsius and printed it again. And this time it cooked to perfection. It was time to heat press. Using a pair of scissors, I trimmed the color bar and excess film around the design. I grabbed a blank white T-shirt from my closet. Some parchment paper from my kitchen and set my heat press to 160 degrees Celsius. I slid the heat press mat inside the T-shirt and used a lint ruler to clean the surface. I then pre-pressed the T-shirt for seven seconds to remove any moisture, then place the film on top. Using a ruler, I lined a design three inches below the collar and measured from the side seams to make sure it was centered. I set the heat press to firm pressure and gave the T-shirt my first press for 15 seconds. And then I realized I forgot to put parchment paper on top to protect the heat plate. Luckily, everything was okay. I waited 15 seconds for the film to cool, then peeled it off. So satisfying. I then went in for a second press for another 15 seconds, making sure to use parchment paper this time. And boom, my first print looks fire. It's got crisp lines, vibrant color, and surprisingly, it feels good to the touch. Not as plasticky as I thought it would be. I was excited. And so I kept the printer rolling. I finished the T-shirt by printing and heat pressing down a small YouTube logo on the front left pocket. I then printed my storage company's logo to make a uniform. This was crazy. I didn't need to buy them for my business ever again. And then I got ambitious. I printed a colorful lemon design that came out amazing. But instead of putting it on a T-shirt, I thought, what about a tote bag? I loaded the tote bag onto the heat press sideways because the design was too tall to fit and heat pressed it down. I was afraid the canvas texture would be too rough for the design to stick, but it pulled through. The tote bag was certified lemon fresh. I was now ready to start this T-shirt printing business. Today, I'm going to set up my brand and website. I'm going to name my business by asking ChatGBT for a list of T-shirt printing business names. Lux Prints. Okay, okay. I'm going to create a quick text logo for it on Kittle and boom, I like it. I'll be using Squarespace to create my website. To kick things off, I'm just going to have a landing page with some photos, info on my T-shirt printing services, and a get a quote button that heads to a contact form. This will be key to generating leads, aka potential clients. From there, I'll be able to follow up, understand their needs, and build trust to ultimately earn their business. Your customer service and sales are powerful tools to stand up. I'm going to spend the rest of the day finishing up the website. I'll see you tomorrow. It's day four and we're ready to start marketing. It's time to get our name out there. I'm focusing on targeting local clients here in Vancouver. While I can sell and ship T-shirts online, and hopefully I will in the future, local clients come with major advantages. I can offer easier communication and faster turnaround times, all while skipping shipping fees and packing hassles. Plus, there's far less competition. Instead of going head to head with big online T-shirt printing companies, I can specialize in my local market and use that fact as a competitive advantage. I'll be using three promotional channels, with the first one being Google. I've set up a Google business profile to help my company show up on Google Search and Google Maps. People looking for T-shirt printing services will likely search for one nearby, so I'm making sure they can find mine. The second channel I'll be using is social media. My main goal is to establish an online presence for my business. People's social media stock now before trusting anyone and any business. So I'm going to give them that social proof. I've created an account on Instagram to showcase the shirts I've made and some behind the scenes footage. Finally, my third channel for today is Facebook Marketplace. It's great for promoting local services because the algorithm is hyper local. It pushes listings directly to people in my immediate area for free. I posted a listing featuring the content I posted on my social media with a description about my service. I think I've got a solid promotional foundation in place, at least to begin with. Now we just wait for our first client to roll it. They did not roll it. Honestly, I didn't have high hopes. It would have been a miracle if someone did this quick. I don't even think Google has ranked my website yet. The reality is you can't expect clients to just come to you at the start. You have to go to them. That's why starting yesterday, I spent time compiling two lists of potential clients to reach out to one of random local businesses near me and one of people I personally know. Everyone talks about cold call, but no one talks enough about warm call selling to people that already know you. And to be clear, my network isn't full of rich CEOs. They're everyday people. The best thing about this t-shirt printing business is that everyone wears t-shirts and even if they don't need t-shirts, they might know someone that does. So first up, let's call some people I know. Yo, Sean, I'm calling because I'm starting a t-shirt printing business and I know you're a part of a snowboarding club. Do you guys need t-shirts? Oh, wow. That's a really interesting. Um, uh, we don't really have a need for that moment, unfortunately, but, um, yeah, maybe in the future I'll let you know. Hey Naomi, I'm calling because I am starting my own t-shirt printing business and I was wondering, I know you sell arts and accessories and all that. Do you sell t-shirts? Uh, I don't sell t-shirts, but do you print tote bags by any chance? Uh, tote bags? Yeah, I can print tote bags. Do you need some right now? Uh, I just had a batch made with my production partner recently. So probably not for a while, but I'd be interested in the future. Okay. All good. As the rejections went on, I realized that even with my own network, earning my first order wasn't going to be easy. I was nearing the end of my list and was prepping myself to call strangers when. Yo, Jacob, how are you doing, man? I'm good. I'm actually starting my own t-shirt printing business. And I was wondering, I know you have your own Pokemon card show that you run. Do your workers need any uniforms printed or anything like that? Uh, yeah, we actually just got some made for us, so I don't need any for our show. But Vendette shows myself and sell cards and just started a new brand called the PokeSmart. And I could use a shirt for that actually. Yeah, man. I can hook you up. Uh, do you just need one t-shirt? Yeah, no, that would be great. Just one for me and no one else wants to come and sell Pokemon with me. Yeah, I just need one. Okay. Okay, man, I can do that. Let's do it. Sweet. With my first order in, it was time to hustle. I first input Jacob as a contact into my customer relationship management software. I'm using HubSpot's free CRM to manage all my clients and orders. Inside his profile, I've set up his contact info, his company details, and the deal I'm working on with him, which is for one large t-shirt. Pulling it up, I can see how much I'm making, what stage the deal is in, and any notes and design files related to the order. I also created tasks for myself to print the t-shirt and deliver it. What I love is how it keeps all my client info organized in one spot. Works great for tracking leads and can even assist with emails, meeting, scheduling, marketing. It comes with a bunch of useful AI tools. You can get it for free at the link in the description. Shout out to HubSpot for sponsoring this video. It was print day. Jacob sent me his PokeSmart design, which was awesome, but I wasn't a big fan of the text he sent me to put under it. So I used Photoshop to design a new one for him that matched the look. Woo, that's what I'm talking about. We decided to feature the design large on the front of his t-shirt. Since he'll be wearing it while vending and facing customers at his booth, it needs to act like a billboard. I ran to Michael's, an arts and crafts store, to buy a blank Gildan 5000 heavy cotton t-shirt in black. I got my hands on one, but the moment I got home, I realized that I had made a rookie mistake. I only bought one. That meant I only had one shot to make this t-shirt. I could not mess this up. The design printed flawlessly with all of its details and colors intact. I brought it to the heat press, only to discover that the design was too big for the heat plate. I couldn't even fit it sideways like I did with the tote bag. And then it hit me. A crazy idea. The plan was to heat press the top half first, carefully move the t-shirt up, then heat press the bottom half. This was risky. If the film bent or t-shirt shifted even a fraction of an inch, the design would end up warped or crooked. And remember, I only had one t-shirt, but I had to do it. So I'm here with Jacob. Hello. And I'm going to present him his t-shirt. Are you ready? I'm ready. Well, it all started with this DTF print and then boom, there's your t-shirt. What do you think? This is really nice. This is great. I'm going to get all my shirts. Yeah. And you're going to wear this when you're vending at your car shows. I am. I'm going to wear this every day. Now I'm going to wear it to work, formal events, weddings, smells nice. All right. I'm going to have to show this to my puppy dog and see if it gets the sniff of approval. Cora, I got a new shirt. What do you think about it? Good shirt. Oh, she likes it. She likes it. And that brings us to the end of the challenge. Breaking down my revenue. I sold one t-shirt for $25. I could have charged a graphic design fee as well, but I didn't bill Jacob for that. For my expenses, it cost me $3 and 17 cents for the blank t-shirt. $1 and 41 cents for the ink and film and four cents for the electricity to power the printer, shaker oven and air purifier. In total, my profit for this challenge is $20 and 38 cents. Actually, this totally slipped my mind during the challenge. Jacob's design has Pikachu in it, which means I technically can't sell the t-shirt to him unless I have a commercial license from Pokemon. So Pokemon lawyers, I've refunded all the money back to him. Please don't sue me. But for the sake of the video, let's just say the sale counted. Now that only includes the variable costs. It doesn't include the website hosting domain name and t-shirt printing equipment. Adding all that in, I'm currently down $8,320 and 61 cents, but they are upfront investments that I can eventually break even on as I continue to sell t-shirts as well as potentially other products like tote bags and hoodies. There's even the opportunity to sell DTF transfers on their own. This is just the beginning. Comment below if you want to see me try this for 30 days. Otherwise, be sure to like this video, subscribe if you haven't already and peace out.