Back at the start of May, I kicked off the first line of products for my haberdashery. As I mentioned before, this idea was brewing in my head for some time until I honed in on expressive t-shirts for makers and hardware hackers.
I am now 3 months in and have been learning a lot about what it takes to setup and run an Etsy store. But also, I have been in a deep creative drive – every time I think I’ve run out of ideas, many more bubble up.
While for the past many years, I have been accustomed to making tangible electronics, now this has been a consuming project to make wearable art. Haha.
Design decisions
When I started the shirts, I was fixed on twisting famous quotes into a maker version – such as ‘I make, therefore I am – Descartes’ or ‘Ask not what your makerspace can do for you… – Kennedy’. Some were text only, tho, where I could, I added some related graphic.
Then I started making some bigger graphics to use, and in some cases, decided the graphics on their own could be cool. That’s when I started thinking of other things I could do, especially hand-drawn.
I’ve been having a blast doing hand drawings of famous circuits, chips, components, and dev boards. I think this will keep me busy for some time.
I made a video about this, at the end, below.
The next three months
The strategy for Etsy success is to regularly list (I’ve been listing daily for the past two months) to get to that critical mass when folks start regularly buying. I’m almost at the number of listings folks say is needed to reach that critical mass. Tho if things don’t sell well after the next milestone of listings, then I’ll need to reconsider the value and fit of my designs.
There are positive signals, tho. I am getting regular views and some shirts have been favorited (I just hope it’s not my mother checking in daily, haha). But I can’t say I’m ready to claim any success yet.
My goal for the next month is to get more feedback – is this something folks want, is the style anything folks want to wear, are the designs even good enough for folks? But I gotta get out there: There is a big maker event next month, there’s at least one meet-up next week, and I might visit the local makerspace to do some work. That might give me access to good feedback.
Everything points towards me trusting the process I have: being patient, being consistent with adding listings to the store, and getting to the critical mass point I am soon crossing.
Let’s see.
What about you: What do you think of these designs? Anything you’d wear? Feedback, welcome.
