Greater>Than Clothing

I’ve been spending a lot of space in this blog talking about theory, and while that is certainly part of the plan, another key goal is to chronicle how we get this company truly up and running. So, it’s time to check in from an operations/development perspective.

A while back, Ryan and I sat down and worked out a draft budget for phase one of the project. Essentially we were trying to figure out how much cash we would need to design, print and sell our first 300 shirts*. The good news was that we both felt the assumptions were reasonable, and having a budget made the whole enterprise seem more substantial. At our day jobs, the motivation comes from outside, but with Greater>Than we have to find ways to keep ourselves motivated. Simply having a plan goes a long way, even (maybe especially) when it illuminates the obstacles in our path. In this case, that’s exactly what it did, as we simply didn’t have the money our budget called for.

We had taken in some outside investment, if you’ll recall, but mostly we’re trying to bootstrap this operation. That meant that we needed some patience. I knew I could save the remainder of the money we needed, but it was going to take a little while. I didn’t know exactly how long, mostly because there were a couple of potential cash injections on the horizon that could shorten the timeline. First, I was looking for a new day job, and knew from a former coworker that I could cash out unused vacation if and when I left the old one. Also, I was in line for a bonus of indeterminate size.

My search for a new job went great once I got serious about it, and I’m really happy with the result. I ended up moving from a big software company headquartered in the pacific northwest to a big wireless company headquartered in the pacific northwest. I’m making a little more money and have a better commute, but the most significant differences are that I’m in a much better position to make a difference for customers, and that I’m not dreading going in to work any more.

In the short term, finding, getting and transitioning into my new day job took up a lot of my attention and I wasn’t able to make much time for G>T (Ryan’s employment is a bit unsettled at time of writing as well). Also, it means that I don’t work with Ryan any more, so we actually have to make an effort to get together to talk about our company. On the other hand, I cashed out my vacation and got the bonus I was waiting for (probably less than I would have gotten if I had stayed, but still decent). All in all, I think this works out to good news for Greater>Than, but in the midst of all this we lost some momentum.

One of the key benefits to our current operating strategy is that we have basically no overhead. Ryan and I can take the time we need and do things the way we want to without any financial pressure. So a break in the action isn’t a big deal. Psychologically, though, it helps to feel like we’re on a roll. Inevitably, obstacles present themselves, and it’s a lot easier to jump over a hurdle if you’re already running. If you’ve seen a 110 meter high-hurdles race, you’ll know that at a certain speed jumping over the hurdle is actually the path of least resistance.

We’re starting to get some of that momentum back. We’ve been in contact with more designers, and I still get pumped every time I get to tell an artist about what we’re trying to do here. Every single person I talk to has their own unique take on the concept, and since the whole point of this enterprise is to get people to engage creatively, that is tremendously encouraging. Plus, we’re just about where we need to be financially to start setting up our print shop, which will be a huge step forward for us on a lot of fronts. I love the internet, but there’s nothing like actually building something you can touch. We’ll be documenting that process quite thoroughly, believe me.

So, that’s where we are today. As always, we are committed to the idea that great ideas can come from anywhere, so if you have any suggestions or advice for us, contact us or leave a comment below.

*The 300 figure is a little bit arbitrary, but we thought 6 different designs seemed like a decent variety, and selling 50 shirts per design seemed like an aggressive but achievable initial goal.