5 Things You Didn’t Know About The “800 MILES” Apparel

1. My experience with selling merchandise miserably failed prior to the “800 MILES” apparel

Back in 2018 I really wanted to create my own product and online store. I discovered Amazon had a platform to create and sell your own products and thought it could be an interesting experience to work with them. I did everything I could to make the launch as successful as possible yet it wasn’t enough given that I had no idea how to properly market and launch everything. Although it was a valuable experience, I barely made any profit and that lead me to believe that I could never be successful in launching another product/business.

2. Only 8 products were made.

One year later, I decided to give it another shot and create a product alongside of a series I made called “800 MILES”. My expectations were extremely low based on my previous experience with selling clothes online; therefore, only about 8 products were stocked when it launched. I was surprised when we sold out but due to high demand we restocked and within a month, we had sold over 100 products.

3. We had less than a week to create everything.

I had known for a while I wanted to start creating designs/products alongside of my videos but I never had the right resources or experience to invest myself into such a big project. A week before “800 MILES” premiered, I got on a call with Jade Darmwangsa and she presented an opportunity to put out apparel inspired by my series. So with less than a week, the two of us put together everything we needed to make the launch of the apparel as successful as possible. Putting something like this together so last minute was pretty stressful and ideally I would’ve liked to of had more time; but either way, everything came together and worked out.

4. The design wasn’t finalized until the day of the launch.

The design was inspired by a week-long road trip I went on over the summer with my cousins around Oregon. I knew I wanted the product to tell a story and have meaning behind it so I decided to use the shape of the route we took throughout the week of driving. Obviously Jade and I had a rough idea of what the design was going to look like but it wasn’t finalized until the day of the launch. I remember about an hour before the first episode was uploaded I was sitting at my computer shaking trying to “animate” the final design in time. Since I don’t actually even know how to graphically design anything, I ended up repeatedly using the letter “I” to create the shape of the route. Even though that's pretty unprofessional, I did what I could with what I had and I'm still happy with the way it turned out.

5. Making money wasn’t the main objective.

Obviously the money is rewarding and helps me create more videos; however, I didn’t launch apparel with the intent of making bank. I knew I wanted my products to reflect the videos I make so I decided to go with quality over quantity. Selling a higher quality material came with the sacrifice of potentially selling a lower quantity of crewnecks. Which was okay with me because I didn’t want to put out something that looked and felt cheap. I also just really enjoyed the learning experience and found that I was more fulfilled working on the project than receiving the money from the project.