You’ve got style, you’ve got the juice! Why don’t you start a clothing line, create some trends? It may/may not be as easy as you think, but know that you can count on YRB to give you the information you need to create your own clothing brand.

Did you know that clothing brands usually underperform the rest of small business? While over 50% of small businesses are successful after four years, its the opposite for apparel lines. According to Statistic Brain, around 53% of clothing lines don’t make it after the first 4 years.

Statisticians claim that this is a result of higher competition in the clothing industry. Everyone wants to create their line of socks or their own t-shirt online shop so they can dropship it. It is also widely thought that businesses that rely heavily on creativity need to have people working in it who are not just creative, but business-minded. That balance can be hard to achieve.

Nevertheless, it works for many brands. How can we make you one of the clothing lines that succeed? Let’s find out.

Create a clothing line: Have a plan

Setting up a business plan is crucial to success. This means setting aside time to meet and discuss the company’s name and owners/managers/investors, and deciding what kind of products the clothing line will sell. Some of this information is important for you to set up this business legally. The meeting of the business’ partners should result in a knoweldge of how the operations of the company will work. Who will be manufacturing? Who will be shipping?

Be unique!

What will make you stand out from the millions of clothing companies out there? It may be a small quirk that makes the pants unique or a stunning logo that people must have. Whatever it is, bring your best creations to the table and sketch them out. You can even use a professional sketcher or someone on Fiverr to help you create a sketch of what your design will look like.

The next step is then to prototype the design. Make your sketch a reality. Share it with friends, family and wear it out! See how people react to it or what they think it would be worth. This information can be very useful in deciding which direction your business will go in.

Create your clothing line: Funding

Now we have to come back down from the creative high, the fun stuff. You have to decide how you are going to fund this business. Will you qualify for a small business loan? Do you have the room on your credit card? Will Aunt Gina give you 50k to start? These are important questions to ask because the money for fabric, for shipping, for labor must come from somewhere. Nowadays, people like to use crowdfunding to generate mass appeal for their product and to get the funds necessary to start.

clothing line 1

In some funding instances, you will want to be able to prove that this business will be profitable. Lenders will want to know that they can A) get a return on their investment and B) be supporting a business that can have some longevity. A generally acceptable margin of profit can range from 30-50%. Aim for that range in order to cover all your ancillary costs like labor, transportation, marketing and the like.

There you have it! Once you have your funding, your product and you start to market and build a presence, your clothing line is taking off. Push forward! Don’t be afraid to be a walking advertisement for your brand. After the dust setlles, don’t be afraid to adjust to better reach your target audience. Your YRB family supports you. Send us a t-shirt when you’re all finished!!

Have you or a friend started a clothing line? How did it go? What challenges should we be aware of? Share in the comment section below!