Greater>Than Clothing

Hey everyone. It feels like it has been a while since we checked in so I thought I’d give a small update.

These last couple weeks have been pretty busy for me at my “real” job so not too much progress has been made since our last meeting. However, Joey and I have a scheduled get together for Tuesday night. This is not an “official” Greater>Than get together but, the discussion will most likely gravitate towards our business.

I spent last week in training down in San Bruno, CA which is just south of San Francisco (by the airport). In this training I realized how patient a person I can be when it comes to learning something new. I feel like I thrive in these types of environments. I love being able to listen, see, then repeat new-found knowledge. I also realized that many people learn in very different ways. For instance, some are less willing to learn something new than they are to make sure others are aware that they already know alot. There was this person in the training who was constantly trying to “work ahead” and take their own path in the instruction. It ended causing more problems than were necessary and I was getting pretty frustrated. Then I began to realize that this was probably the way this guy learned. It wasn’t the best for group settings, but maybe he was getting something out of it. I also realized how process oriented I am.

I saw the steps that were laid out for me in the training and I followed all assignments as they were designed. Success! Nice story Ryan…but what does that have to do with printing shirts?

Dwight likes the facts.

FACT: Neither Joey nor I have ever printed a shirt.

FACT: There are thousands of people who have printed shirts successfully who have documented these processes on the internet. 

FACT: I intend to use my methodical learning process to take the steps necessary to learn to print the sweetest shirts around.

So in short, this week of training that I went through has shown me how patient I can be in learning new things and I fully intend to apply that to Greater>Than.

Thanks for reading/listening!

On Tuesday, Joey and I had a ‘planned’ meeting. I say planned because many times if Joey and I are hanging out, the conversation can just turn towards G>T. However, this time it was on our calendars…and that meant I would be taking notes…which means it’s business time.

We decided to meet in Ballard at the Old Town Ale House. We found a parking spot just down the street from our meeting destination and noticed a sandwich board on the sidewalk for Raw Threads. We decided to check it out and I’m glad we did. It’s a small boutique filled with unique and (for the most part) locally designed clothing. It was good to see a newer shop like that in Ballard. I’m sure there are many more like it that would be a good fit for Greater>Than apparel. To me, the visit to Raw set the stage nicely for us to proceed with our meeting.

Old Town Ale House is a clean, older place with good drafts, plenty of open tables, pretty good food and it’s apparently awesome for Greater>Than meetings. I started to jump right in and express my need for an online idea sharing space and it hit me. I had been eager to pay homage to the great (and fictional) Murray Hewitt, band manager for Flight of the Conchords and a Deputy Cultural Attaché at the New Zealand Consulate. If you have not seen Flight of the Conchords on HBO, please do so. See, Murray does not believe that ANY meeting can officially begin until role is taken. So we stopped everything and took role. Joey…present. Ryan…present.

Murray takes taking role very seriously. 

Now we can get down to business. The goals (for me) going into the meeting were simply to find out where we were financially and set some timeframes for completing certain critical tasks. From this, Joey had a great idea of creating a list of steps to complete in order to go from where we are ‘today’ to actually printing our first shirt. Ideally, we will create a list of tasks with important details about each task such as time dependancy, resources needed and essentially who will own it.

The hope is that we will be able to target and schedule larger more difficult objectives while identifying the smaller items that we can complete at anytime. The list will let us know exactly what we can do to move the project forward at any given moment.

It’s business time. 

Work on this infamous list will start immediately and we hope to share some of the tasks with you as well as the progress we make as we tackle them. We’re making progress and having this meeting was a big part of keeping the momentum going. Look for future posts with more details of the list and the actions we are taking to make the list a bit shorter.
Thanks for checking in!

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. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the many fun things about starting your own company is that you get to make up a title for yourself. Publicly traded companies officially have to have CEOs, etc., but private companies like Greater>Than have no such constraint. The founders of Cranium Inc., for example - Richard Tait and Whit Alexander - call themselves the Grand Poo-bah and Chief Noodler, respectively.

I’ve been searching for something a little more descriptive of what I want my role in the company to be. Ideally, it should be fairly general, as I plan to have a presence in many of our operations, even long term. But, although I am and will continue to be an owner/leader, I never want to position myself as a “boss”. I’m not “bossy”.

So here’s my draft title: Chief Creativity Enabler

I like it because it clearly shows that our priority as a company is to give people an outlet to do the sort of work that they want to do. We are a platform for creative work, and my job as a leader is to make sure that the platform is as functional as possible. Of course, not all of my work is going to contribute directly to enabling the creativity of other people. I’m thinking here about development or sales activities, the more “businessy” stuff I have to do to make the company successful. I think the title covers this side of my role as well, reminding everyone (including especially myself) that building the business is necessary because it will allow us to enable more creativity, and not the other way around.

What do you think? Over-explained and hopelessly cheesy? Heavy handed compared to your more succinct idea? The perfect title for such a visionary genius? Let me know (or let me have it) in the comments.

Update: After some great discussion in the comments (thanks Sarah!), I’ve decided to revise my title. I think the revision still encompass the points above, but it adds an extra dimension. Here it is: Chief Creativity Catalyst. A catalyst assists in a chemical reaction by speeding it up or making it happen more efficiently, but the reaction can happen without it. I think that’s an apt metaphor, since one of our base assumptions is that there is a lot of latent creativity out there. We want to help people discover or re-awaken their creative sides, but the call to create is innate.

When I first became obsessed with the idea of Greater>Than screen-printing its own shirts, I knew that there was some significant equipment involved. I had an idea of what was needed but perhaps not the specifics of each piece of equipment.

Research was required…off to the Internet! I first came across some start-up packages of screen-printing equipment and I was getting pretty excited about some of the prices. It looked like there were some pretty good deals out there. I thought for sure we would find a great package solution.
 
Then I seemed to hit a wall. My searches started to yield the same results and I felt like I wasn’t getting what I needed (I think screen printing equipment manufacturers need a lesson in SEO ). I knew there was so much more out there that I hadn’t tapped into yet.

I had been sharing bits and pieces of info as I gathered them with Joey and he mentioned a great online forum I should check out called T-Shirt Forums (how obvious ). Upon checking out the site, I quickly searched the “Screen Printing” section to see if others had opinions on printing equipment. Sure enough, there was a plethora of great insight on multiple aspects of many types of printing equipment.

Most of the questions I had (and many that I didn’t) were already discussed and I eagerly read post after post absorbing all kinds of nuggets. Perhaps the best bit of info was some reviews of the exact equipment from the previously mentioned online start-up packages. Low and behold the deals were too good to be true.
Read the rest of this entry »

In addition to welcoming Ryan to the Greater>Than team, I wanted to follow up on the change in strategy he described in his intro post. My original plan was for Greater>Than to play a design consulting/curation role, working with designers to help them achieve their visions and selecting the most promising designs for production. We would then contract with another company to get our shirts made.

This had proven a bit frustrating, especially since the company I had chosen to work with was in another state, and we were conducting all of our business through e-mail. Plus, we don’t want to compromise at all on quality, and I felt like there was an element of risk involved there, since the quality of the print itself (a crucial component in overall quality) would be out of our hands.

While I was trying to force my way through the frustration, Ryan saw this problem as an opportunity, deftly demonstrating one of the key operating principles that I had set out for the company (but had failed to live up to myself): use problems to identify opportunities. This principle of ‘probletunity*’ is a reminder to bring creativity to bear on issues that hold us back, so that they can be not only overcome but transcended. Read the rest of this entry »

As you may have seen, Greater>Than is growing. I wanted to check in and say how tremendously excited I am to have Ryan on board. He’s a born problem solver, the kind of guy that every growing business wants to find. As he explained, he is going to concentrate mostly on production and operations, but he also has a designer’s eye and experience with vector software (like Illustrator), which I plan to take full advantage of.

I’m also very pleased at how organic this development has been. I’ve had the privilege of working with Ryan at the day job. Our friendship led to discussions about my nascent business, and I was glad to find that Ryan thought the idea had potential. I’ve received a lot of advice and encouragement from people whom I respect (Sarah and Halli in particular), but it’s hard to describe how great it feels to be able to offload specific tasks to someone in whom I have such confidence. (I’m always looking for more collaborators. If you want to get involved, drop me a line.)

His interests and expertise are nicely complementary to mine as well. As readers of this blog may have noticed, I have a tendency to get a little carried away with theory. I like to think about principles, strategy and philosophy; the “whats” and “whys” if you will. That’s just how my mind works. Ryan is much more tactical. He likes to think about “how”. He has a natural talent for logistics, and his involvement in the project is already helping me reign myself in a bit and concentrate on getting things done. I’m looking forward to seeing how our partnership develops.

I’m on the verge of gushing here, so I’ll end it there. Welcome aboard, Ryan!

Hey Greater>Than enthusiasts, I’m Ryan. I first heard of Joey’s plans for Greater>Than in early 2007 and loved the ideas and the enthusiasm that were presented. Since then I have not been able to stop thinking about it. After hearing what Joey had to say, I instantly knew that I could be a good resource for him.

I had spent the first five years of my professional career in manufacturing, specifically as a manager of a design team focused on creating designs for athletic balls. In that position I learned a ton about manufacturing and in particular the processes of transforming digital images into something tangible (a ball). In the ball business most of the graphics are, in essence, screen-printed. I traveled to China to witness this process first hand and I was shocked at how much of the screen-printing is done by hand…it was very impressive. That experience gave me a new appreciation for the work that went into our products.

Fast forward…When I came to understand that Greater>Than would be outsourcing the printing of its shirts, I saw this as an opportunity lost. I did a brief bit of research and encouraged Joey to consider controlling the means of production. (Disclaimer: I am a very hands-on do-it-yourselfer and there are not many projects out there that scare me) When you control production, you are able to ensure that the highest quality is achieved and that the best materials and processes are used.

With increased control, I believe Greater>Than will be able to set itself apart from being just another t-shirt vendor into something Greater>Than. Besides, it’ll just be completely awesome to hand-print a t-shirt . So I have agreed to join Greater>Than and bring my expertise to the production & operations side of things. I will put forth my best efforts to ensure that Greater>Than delivers only the best products possible.

A momentous event occurred a few days ago as I, on behalf of Greater>Than Clothing, accepted a check from two visionary investors. I’ve told a lot of people about my ideas for this company, and I’ve received a lot of new ideas and encouragement in return, but I must say that it is a completely different feeling when someone puts their own money on the line to help you achieve your vision.

It’s an amazing lift, especially considering the source. Brian and Juanita are an intelligent, adventurous couple who believe in following dreams, and I couldn’t hope for a more supportive or resourceful pair of investors. They have a great sense of community and some excellent marketing ideas, and I look forward to collaborating with them as this venture develops. Wow, I’m gushing. But hey, it’s all true. It was a big day for this company.

The terms of the deal were simple. In exchange for some start-up capital, they will be entitled to a fixed amount of profits after we recoup our costs. I will use the money to increase the number of designs available at launch from 2 to 4. I’m in the process of finalizing the designs and will have more details soon.

Greater>Than Clothing is not actively seeking investors at this time, but I definitely need collaborators. If you’re a designer or know one who might want some work, or if you have a cool idea for a t-shirt, drop me a line in the comments or send mail to joey [at] greaterthanclothing [dot] com.

I had a fairly productive weekend here at G>T headquarters, and I just wanted to check in with a couple of updates:

• After getting feedback from several friends on ~15 design concepts, I decided on the first two Greater>Than Clothing designs! Stay tuned for full descriptions.
• I did a bit of financial analysis, convincing myself that I might actually be able to make more money on these shirts than I spend. I’m mentally prepared to take the plunge and order some inventory. Now it’s a matter of getting my ideas executed as t-shirts. More on that later as well.
• I applied for a license to do business in the state of Washingon. It was easy; I did the whole thing online and it only cost $20 to apply. Next up will be a license for Seattle, and once I have that I think I’ll be officially allowed to do some business.
• I upgraded Wordpress (the software running this site) to v2.1, and so far I like the new version a lot.

I’m feeling good. I like the momentum that seems to be building around this project. It seems that once I set a goal and broke it into individual steps, things started to flow. Perhaps simply switching from abstract visualizing to concrete problem-solving allows solutions to emerge.

• Washington State Department of Licensing
• Wordpress.org