PASSION:
The unwavering desire to explore something. Generally, people claim they have a passion for different things. You can have all the passion in the world, but if your work ethic and business acumen isn’t at par with your passion, then you might as well call it quits before you start cause basic passion would only get you so far. Most would-be streetwear entrepreneurs lack the work ethic and skills to make their labels a true reality and success. This doesn’t just refer to hustle work, but extra work like accounting spreadsheets, a product plan, a product line up, a profit and loss sheet, cut and sew skills, printing skills and many others.
GET HELP:
If you can’t do all these, then do get some help, you can’t honestly do everything like website, social media as you will much rather be focusing on design than actual office work, and profit margins. Learn how to delegate and collaborate. You never know, the right person might help propel your idea to new heights. Just be sure to have contracts in place.
BE MORE PROFESSIONAL:
Make lines sheets, tech packs, Order forms, Skew numbers, brand book, a physical lookbook, call shops for meetings to get your merchandise in a shop. Let your mail read “INFO@YOURBRAND.COM” not “YOURBRAND@GMAIL.COM”. All these things means you have the perception of seriousness, and buyers will take you seriously. If you don’t take it seriously, you start doing things like faking success or faking promotion. We all know its hard to start a label, and its so easy to have the perception that your brand is doing amazing with all the numbers on your asocial media account, but if you're not selling a damn thing, then it doesn’t matter. People are not going to be attracted to your label simply because you have a lot of numbers, they need a cosign, and that cosign doesn’t always have to be from a famous person, it could literally be the community that you're representing itself. Focus on what people want to wear in the community that you represent, and make them feel like they are in an exclusive club. Would you rather have three thousand people who are dedicated followers of your brand and who are likely to buy something or ten thousand people who are either fake or who basically care-less about your brand. Forget about the numbers, its all about connecting.
Connect more.
Some of you out there are reading this and are just whining ; “Its hard to do the leg work” , “The money doesn’t come quick enough” , “I’m tired of my brand not being noticed, Its so dope”…..
That simply means that you're not passionate enough. Thats what passion really is, beyond the money, its the willingness to completely dedicate your life and time to the craft you do, going to events, studying the market, being a better designer, making a look-book, a decent website, reaching out to people, continuous progression and updating, learning the in’s and out of your careers, your business, because the biggest reason why most brands fail is because they never did any legwork outside the idea stage. They use social media only instead of hitting the streets.
The best way to not fail is to hone in on the crowd because if you do that, you gain a ton of skills which may prove useful in the future and sometimes you may find out that you are not well suited to do the whole brand thing by yourself, or at all. Or maybe, you apply the knowledge you gained to do something you had no idea would work but it did, and if you were just more consistent and didn’t worry so much about making every inch of it perfect, would be huge.
Even a lot of trained designers never make their own labels because they don't have the stomach for the business, its very difficult. Streetwear is a bit unique because the labels are predicated on people who are not only about the culture but also business, and monetising the culture by putting the design method behind it. And while there are a ton of others missteps that labels make, none are more glaring than simple ineptitude because of pride.
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