Magic or Bust? Both.

We had a spectacular looking booth at the August Magic Trade Show. I'm not afraid to admit that we felt our booth was effn awesome. We had catalogs, notebooks to hand out, a great display and even Peppermint Patties (Ted's favorite). Unfortunately, we did not stay for the whole show. To make a really long and painful story super short: we were not in the printed guide under our category and we were not placed well on the show floor. In fact, all of the independent t-shirt brands were about 7 aisles over. We were next to beanie babies and licensed sports apparel. So, we're going back in February. Crazy you say? Maybe. But the show organizers are working with us and we are not going to let an apparel trade show get us down. We will be successful and we are going to do what it takes to get there. In the meantime, enjoy some glimpses of the coolness that was OLN at our short show appearance. And remember, "Don't let the bastards get you down!"

-Shelley

Damn this looked good!

What would we do without 3M command hooks?

Just before I took this, the sportswear people in the next booth were staring at us and whispering "What are those t-shirt freaks doing here?" Then I gave her candy.

We attracted a lot of other vendors and shirt salesmen with our minty freshness

Now you know what my kitchen counters look like. Plus, cool notebooks.

Best thing about the show? The hoodies Ted got for us. I LOVE mine, thanks TT!

We were lookin' all professional-like, with our sewn in tags...

One Less Nemesis? WHO?

It's MAGIC time!

No, this is not Ted. Thankfully.

No, we're not putting on capes and black hats (well, Ted wears black hats, but that's another story) and sawing a broad in two. We're exhibiting at the Magic Trade Show in Vegas in a little over a week. This is a BIG, BIG deal for us. It's an investment in the future of our brand as we present our line to the single largest event in the apparel industry in the US. Did I say it's a big deal? Yeah. But we could not be more excited!

Last February, we went to the show to really look closely at other vendors at the show and where we thought we fit in. I wrote a post all about that experience here: "Water's cool at POOL". But we didn't get in to POOL. We were very bummed, but then we were told we were actually a better fit for the STREET section of the Magic Show. WOW! Big time here, on the big show floor. We were accepted at STREET and we started getting ready.

Unbelievably excited to be on this little map

We'll be in booth 35048. We've been gearing up with labels for our shirts, notebooks and stickers to give to the buyers walking the show, plus a new catalog (picture to come). I'm sharing the pictures of a few of the things we've done so far and will keep the updates coming!

We're posting over at the T-shirt forums too, sharing our experience and hoping to meet up with other t-shirt peeps at the show. Check out our Facebook and Twitter for updates too!

There seems to be a mad love of these notebooks

No, we're not selling tagged Audi seats

One Less Politician, the TRUE Walking Dead

Hangtags that don't let the bastards get you down

Getting ready for Fremont Fair in June!

We are going to have a booth at our first outdoor event! We'll be at the Fremont Fair this June and we're really excited! The Fremont Fair will be June 16 and 17 in the Fremont neighborhood in Seattle. We're looking for ideas on how to display our t-shirts and make our tent exciting and enticing. If you have an idea for us, post it in the comments or on our Facebook page.

Do what you love

Ouch

I've been researching niche markets of other t-shirt companies, participating on the T-shirt forums and generally working to get our business to the next level. We've heard before that our market is all over the place. I agree and disagree at the same time. We started because Ted is an avid snowboarder. The story goes that he was snowboarding on Stevens Pass with his son 3 years ago. He thought to himself "if there was just one less skier on the slopes today..." and that was the idea that formed

One Less™ Nemesis. Snowboarders and skiers don't much like each other. There's a rivalry and they get in each others way. It's such a simple idea, it's really amazing no one else has thought of this before. But we're the ones with the trademark for One Less. 

So he formed the company and got the ball rolling. Then I got involved. And I got Tarl, our first designer involved. We all loved lots of things. I happen to really dig Vampires, so we have a One Less Vampire and One Less Werewolf shirt. Our company is based in Washington with a lot of Husky and Cougar fans there, so we have those shirts. Tarl is a funny dude and liked the movie 300, so One Less Spartan/299 was born. T's son loved playing Left for Dead, so we have a One Less Zombie shirt.

We do have a lot of different audiences we reach for with our designs. College football fans, skiers and snowboarders, surfers, Mac lovers, Zombie enthusiasts, vampire fangirls. But in the end, it's all about a fun way to take out those things that get in your way. Under your skin. We're doing what we love about things that we love. I can't think of a better way to build a company.

Shelley

ISS Long Beach

Fruitylicious

Yeah, we saw the Fruit of the Loom guys at the ISS show in Long Beach last weekend. And that's not all. We saw all of the latest trends in tees and colors (neon is making a big comeback, hello 1984), visited shirt vendors, met the amazing Rodney Blackwell from T-shirt forums, attended some seminars (the most valuable was from Ryonet) and generally got to see all the latest topics and trends of our industry.

The Queen Mary -This is not how Ted got to LB

First, we were really lucky Ted made it to Long Beach at all. In fact, his flight was one of 15 that actually were allowed to take off from Seattle. (285 other flights were not so lucky). We didn't know what to expect from Long Beach, but there was the Queen Mary, really good pizza with crumbly toppings and lots and lots of other t-shirt business people.

Crumbly toppings are not just for Indiana anymore

Our three highlights of the show have to be: The social media and Internet marketing seminar hosted by Ryan and JP. Even though I've been in marketing for years, these guys had some really great, up-to-date information specifc to the t-shirt industry. We are excited and inspired to try many of their ideas

I ordered 6,000 with OLN bombs when T wasn't looking...

Second, seeing all of the COOL TEES! Really, it's what we dig. Royal Apparel has a custom burnout tee. That means they can literally burn your design into the fabric of a shirt. Can you imagine our bomb all over these shirts? I sure can! Then Ted asked the question: what's the minimum order? Answer: 6,000. Shit. Well, a girl can dream... We stopped by lots of tee shirt brand booths: American Apparel, Bella + Canvas, Next Level, and of course JS Apparel. I have to say, even after seeing a boat load of other shirts, JS still had the softest feeling shirts around and they also are about the only ones who side tag their shirts with only care tags, letting us brand the shirts ourselves. (Winner, winner chicken dinner!)

Rodney and Ted - t-shirt moguls in the making

Finally, probably the number one benefit of attending the ISS show was meeting Rodney Blackwell (who has the funniest t-shirt brand: I hate clowns.com), our fearless leader of the t-shirt forums. Rodney runs his biz like we do: he's a brand. He has the ideas and runs with them, outsourcing his printing and sometimes design when needed. It's really cool to meet someone else who has the same dream and who's making it happen. Not only did we pick his brain, (we left enough for him to remain operational) we also attended a meet-up dinner with other great t-shirt forums peeps. There were over a hundred of us there, at this place that Ted warned me was a meat extravaganza. No, it was not a Chippendale review. It was Green Field's Churrascaria. We ate, we chatted, we felt like we were a part of a bigger industry and that felt good.

That about sums up our first trip to ISS Long Beach. When people say trade shows are on their way out, I have to disagree. There is something about seeing and feeling all of your t-shirt options in one single place that is...irreplaceable. And there is also something about the camaraderie and relationship building that only happens when a group of people who share a passion around a specific industry meet face to face. It's a feeling of belonging. It's inspiring. We're ready to embark on 2012 with a new vision and a new focus. We're headed next to the Magic/Sourcing/Pool show in February to take another step closer to our goal: to get our shirts out there and make people happy wearing them. Because our idea is original and smart ass and fun. We're gonna make it happen.

 Thanks for reading,

Shelley

LA Fitness Expo: Another One Under Our Belts

We recently returned from the biggest show that we have participated in, the LA Fitness Expo held at the end of January. Our goal for this show was to expose One Less Nemesis to a large group of people that are in our target market. We want OLN to be a brand people love and want to wear and that takes a lot of exposure. So off to LA we went and we were able to take some major leaps in the right direction (plus we got to drive the coolest, kick ass muscle car! I loved the Dodge Charger, doesn't it look like an OLN kind of car?)

First, we did in fact, build and create our biggest, coolest display yet of the shows we've done over the past year. It took us hours to get the carpet guys to get to our booth and then build the back wall structure completely wrong for 2/3 of it, finally figuring it out on the last tower ("um, these panels have a bunch of little squares and these have big ones....OH those are the sides and these are the bottoms, DAMNIT!") This day caused cuts, bruises, shaky hands and my favorite phrase from Ted, "zip tie the bitch." Of course he was referencing the tower we were building, not someone we held captive and tied to our booth. And in this case the bitch wasn't actually me. Promise.

We also got to meet everyone at Creation Entertainment and tour their office. These are some of the most awesome, entrepreneurial people you will ever hope to meet. We shipped a few things, including our very inexpensive but awesome looking banner there, to one of OLN's BFFs, Amy. Thank you, Amy! We saw Gary, Matt, Adam and the crew. Glendale was lovely.

We also went to the Target in Glendale. Our theory here (and we learned this from another vendor at one of Creation's Star Trek Conventions) was that it would be a lot cheaper to buy inexpensive display components at Target in the city of a convention (under $80) and let them be disposable rather than buy them and ship them all over (we estimated shipping at over $200.) So we went to perhaps the coolest Target I've ever been in. They literally have escalators for the carts. We were amazed (it doesn't take much.) We talked through our display and bought or organized all of the components. We had to ask 3 people to help us find zip ties...ahh, the glory of trade shows. We will always have zip ties in our bags now.

Finally it was show day. Thousands, literally thousands, of people came to the show the first day. A guy walked up to us the very second the show floor opened, told us he loved our tees and bought two immediately. Ted and I looked at each other and thought "here we go!!" We had a great booth, lots of really great feedback and we sold some shirts. Did we totally sell out of shirts like we had dreamed of? Unfortunately, no. Did thousands of people see our shirts and our brand who would have never seen it otherwise? Absolutely. Do we wish that we would experience a sold out, balls to the wall, oh my GOD we're going to run out event? Hell yes. But we have to be realistic. We really accomplished what we meant to accomplish and that was to further our brand. We absolutely believe 100% that this idea and this brand is going succeed. When people get it, they really dig it. And that's how we feel. So we dust off our jeans, take a few to regroup and hit it again with our next strategy because we just know it's going to happen. And by the way, Ted did seem to have some fun while he was there....

Pursuiing our Passion: Sharing the Journey - Starting a Brand

In our first blog post about sharing our journey of building this business, we talked about where the idea for One Less Nemesis came from and how we've come to realize that our brand is truly about pursuing your passions in life. In this post, we're going to talk about the next stage of our brand development, which was the business of starting a business. Ted had this truly amazing idea but there was so much more to be done to put that idea into action. There are so many details, like hiring a lawyer to create a Limited Liability Corporation and then consulting an intellectual properties attorney to trademark the house mark of One Less™ (thankfully, Ted handled all of this before I was even involved).

With those initial important start-up business functions done, Ted needed an artist and a t-shirt printer. He was the man with the idea but he had to have outside help to execute it. First he met with a graphic designer and the ensuing discussion resulted in some interesting original logo designs. I'm not sure how the fighting snakes image first was introduced, but our early logos looked like the circular snakes above. Well....that didn't really work for us. There is a difference between an artist and graphic designer. The graphic designer can make visual art and design without necessarily being a free-hand artist. So we called an artist whose work I had admired for over a year. Tarl Lambson (see his samples and website/contact at www.tarlsscribbles.com) is actually an animator who is uber talented. He first started working on the One Less Skier designs that inspired Ted's idea in the first place. But we really needed a logo so he and I began researching snakes and went through a series of pictures for inspiration like this fighting snake picture. Tarl then gave us some sketches which did not end up being what we chose, but they were so cool...I'm not sure when or how we morphed beyond the snakes but I'm pretty sure Tarl and Ted expressed how they were digging on the bomb. Here is one of the early iterations of bomb variations: Love these guys!!!




Of course, I really liked these versions, but they were thought of as 'flying sp.....' well, you know what we thought.

At the same time, Ted was researching printers in the Seattle area and he met with Gorilla Screen Printing. Ted was adamant about using the discharge process when printing. This process actually removes just a bit of the shirt's dye and embeds the design so when you wash your tee, the design is actually part of the fabric, smooth and soft to the touch. We also went through a few different t-shirt vendors, searching for just the right super-soft, high quality, 100% cotton shirts (the shirt has to be 100% cotton for the discharge ink to work.) We tried American Apparel but in the end, found that JS Apparel shirts fit the best and were the softest.

So we worked to cooperatively design a logo we all loved, found shirts and a printer. We still needed some designs to print on these great shirts! In my next post about sharing our journey, I'll include some of the early designs and how our various passions inspired the wide range of shirts we have today.