I love reading Inc. magazine and one of my favourite sections is Joel Spolsky. In his column he talks about his experience as an entrepreneur and gives monthly advice. I find that his advice really connects with the true reality of everyday business issues.

In this month’s issue which features Marc Ecko on the cover (which also is a good read), Joel says that it’s not the “Big Idea” but the little things (you won’t know these until after the success) will dictate the success or failure of a product. He gives the example that for one of his product they only offered Pay-as-You-Go option for a software. Then they decided to offer a subscription option and the product really took off. In fact if they continued with the Pay-as-You-Go option they would have dumped the product because of the low demand.

Today I met two of the newest JUZD team members. One was Sarvie who have been in the industry for a long time and works at one of the store that carries JUZD. She answered a question that if it wasn’t on my mind, it should’ve been. She told me that after we drop off our shirts for the buyers at the store it was just laying there for a month before they contacted us. And she said the reason was that we didn’t have a look book for the buyers to browse through.

How simple! I didn’t make a lookbook because I wasn’t fully happy with the photos we had and I didn’t think it was that important. I have sent and dropped off lots of samples with buyers and kind of surprise that they didn’t get all excited and want to pick up the line. I wonder because I have such a great product and all the buyers that I’ve met and shown the whole line to really like it. So that’s the missing link!

The moral of this is that always get feedback and watch out for any little things that will catapult your line to the next level. Oh and also always send a lookbook to buyers. How simple of an idea!

So you would think the most important skill in doing a graphic tee line is the ability to design or the ability to have designers to design for you right? That’s how most of the lines I come across do it. The artist is the president and the main person running the business.

But if you suck at designing but still want to make it famous and have a line that come out with designs that match Rocca Wear, Marc Ecko, Timberland, and the likes. What do you do then? You hire the agency that do their design! I got a call from one, Four Front, check out their site www.IntricateConcepts.com. The salesperson told me she came by our booth in Miami’s Traffic show. What?!? I don’t remember her, she probably got my name from the program guide.

Basically they do designs for quite a bit of top companies such as Timberland, Fila, DKNY, Marc Ecko, and many more. Their designs are very trendy. These are the things that I see in Las Vegas MAGIC week. All I can imagine is a room full of people sitting stamping design after design, moving this a bit and that a bit. Make a couple of copies, change font style and the text, sell a copy to Timberlind and sell one to Marc Ecko. The price aren’t too bad, $400 USD for a design.

This works for the big brands. A consumer sees 6 or 7 horrific designs then he see one good one, he buys that and thinks the brand is cool and buy more. They do more advertising and he goes back to their crap and buy more and they make money. No real design philosophy or concept is needed, buy whole bunch of crap designs that follow the latest trend forecast they paid hundred of thousands for and hope one or two is a hit with someone. If not then put the stuff on sale and still make money. The brand continues strong and they make money. Great formula, no design skills or designs needed!