Travel: Ode to a Previous Life.
Aug 13th
Hi! In line with last week’s “learn as much as you can from everyone that you can” tip, join a group! I have met some great people through Etsy teams Chicago Style Crafters and Indie Free Spirits.
The IFS Team holds challenges—a great way to hear fresh ideas and get inspired by fellow teammates. The current challenge is “Travel Inspiration.”
So, here’s the story behind my yellow t-shirt, vinyl cut entry:
Prior to taking the full-time entrepreneurship plunge in July, I used to work for a niche marketing company that sent me to Asia for the better part of 2008. My consultants took me to some amazing shopping districts. My favorite thing to do was find screen printed tees.
I’m not sure why I got such a kick out of the “I <3 CITY” tee but I’ve always wanted to share it with the internets. Other random thoughts: Taipei’s night market has the best tees. Beijing is great if you want Ed Hardy underpants with a Scooby-Doo waistband or New Balance sneakers with the “N” sewn on backwards. A Japanese psychic told me that I once lived in or around Shibuya.
I lived in New York for a few years after school… Now after living in Chicago for four years, it’s no doubt: I <3 CITY.
(even though this is a closed-vote contest, keep your fingers crossed for me!)
To learn more—or to join!— the Indie Free Spirits Etsy Team, click here to read the blog and find out more.
P.S. Jeremy and I are getting married in two weeks.
Barely Legal Radio
Aug 4th
We have a number of friends that have been commenting lately on how far this business has come in such a short amount of time. Which, is funny to hear being that the last three years of entrepreneurship have been both the fastest and slowest, filled with some of the happiest and most gut-wrenching experiences ever. Jeremy gets the question, “Would you do it all over again if you had to?” And we kind of pause…. Maybe I’m just listening to too much “This American Life” and living nostalgia since we’re getting married this month.
I think my number one piece of advice for anyone looking to start or be involved—or jump head first—into any business: learn as much as you possibly can from everybody that you possibly can. And smile at everyone. (You never know who’s going to be on the other side of the table!)
I’v
e been listening to Joe Escalante on Barely Legal Radio for years and every time I catch up on his podcast, I think “I’ve got to make more people listen to this.”
So, this is the blog post where I share my favorite unsecret, for people outside of L.A.:
Visit barelylegalradio.com to learn more about Joe and Indie 103.
click this to launch itunes and download current (and many, many past) podcasts
Follow Joe on Twitter: @joeescalante
From barelylegalradio.com:
Welcome to the dream-crushing world of entertainment law. Whether you want to make it show business, or are just curious as to how it works from a legal perspective join me every Friday from 11AM to Noon on indie1031.com or Radio Weezer for an hour of free legal advice covering film, tv, music, literature, and more. You can join the program with your questions by calling the station at 877-LAW-4777. Or email me right now at info@barelylegalrado.com
Presently I am semi-retired from the practice of law but my 18 years of experience as an entertainment attorney in Hollywood and my 30 years in the music, film, and television business is at your disposal. With my long career playing bass for the Vandals, owner of Kung Fu Records, or my experience as a network TV executive and later film maker, I will hopefully be able to guide you through your specific problem and provide some useful information for the radio audience. ASK JOE? Email me your questions if you can’t wait til the next show. I will get your question answered ASAP. It’s free, and worth every penny: info@barelylegalradio.com.
Barely Legal is brought to you by LegalZoom.com.
Follow their super useful twitter feed: @legalzoom
Final week of free stuff.
Aug 2nd
All free things must come to an end. Fortunately, it’s not THE end… yet. You still have four days to enter our “So many shirts, so little room in the car” giveaway. We’ll notify this week’s final winners on Friday.
Why re-enter? Because we’ve added a few new shirts to the pile. Check out our newest bicycle designs (“No, I don’t know where you can park. I rode my bike here” and “Bike Lane”) and “I love DERBY GIRLS” tee.
So… Head over to our Survey Monkey quiz and let us know which design (and size) you like best from icallthisart.com and you might win!
Week one’s winners: Lisa K. and Dana S.
Week two: Tom L. and Charlie B.
Week three: Drew C. and Molly H.
Week one: and we have a winner!
Jul 16th
If you read our last post, we’re giving away tees. For the remaining three weeks, all you have to do is let us know which is your favorite from icallthisart.com and the size you’d wear. We’re in the middle of packing the car for Pitchfork so we’ll keep this short.
Random.org helped me pick Week One’s winner: Lisa K. and she gets a fabulous bicycle tee!
Week One’s “clothe my dog” winner, also picked by random.org: Dana S.’s poor puppy will be forced to rock a Get Off My Lawn, Squirrel dog tee.
On to WEEK TWO! Enter our Survey Monkey: by clicking here. If you didn’t win in week one, you can reenter each week! (P.S.: once you hit the “done” button, you’re entered; you can X the window without signing up for Survey Monkey services.)
So many shirts, so little room in the car.
Jul 10th
Well, this week we need some help from you all. Don’t worry, we are prepared to offer something in return!
Here’s the deal. We’ve got a whole mess of outdoor markets and street fairs that we’ll be selling our original designs at over the coming months. The problem is that we never really know which shirts are going to sell the best or what sizes of shirts will do better than others. We always either think a design will do great and bring way more than we need, or we think a design might not be so popular and bring way too few! (let’s face it: lugging around one of every size, in both ladies and standard gets tiresome).
This is where you come in. Below is a link to a little 2-question survey that I made on Survey Monkey. All you need to do is take a look at the shirts on icallthisart.com, if you haven’t already, then go to this survey and tell us which design you like the best and what size you wear. This way, we can get a better idea of what to make for all you lovely people!
In return, we will select a random survey entry each Friday (for the next 4 weeks) and the person we select will get whichever shirt they chose… for free!! We’ll even mail it to you for free!!
What better could you ask for? Help out a friendly company like Replica Chicago and get a great chance to win some awesome apparel!
Click here to take the short survey. P.S. You *don’t* need to start an account; after you click “done” at the bottom, that’s it!
Entrepreneur-Ship, Away!
Jun 15th
Hi there! Maybe you’ve read me …and maybe you haven’t. At any rate: thanks for clicking (and reading this sentence). Jeremy and I started this screen printing bid’ness three years ago and it has been growing each day. He has been on printing-overtime and, with the launch of icallthisart.com, we’ve reached the point where we needed an additional screen printer. Enter Ian! (Former screen printer from a major Chicago record label and other shops.)
With increasing demand, I’m also taking the full-time plunge: ending consulting gigs and focusing our business on production.
And to put the cherry on top: we’ve brought on a few other 1099s to get our original apparel into boutiques.
Happy birthday to me! (ok, well, it’s tomorrow… but this blog couldn’t wait.) Help me celebrate! Enter “ecofriendlyprinting” on checkout at icallthisart.com to receive 15% off our tees until 11:59pm June 16! ^_^
Zombies ‘n Bicycles.
Jun 8th
OK… so in between torrential downpours and a fair amount of rain/wind damage aside, we had a fantastic time at Do Division! Our most popular, newest tee from icallthisart.com? I (grenade) zombies. I’d like to take this time to thank Night of the Living Dead, Sean of the Dead, and Lucio Fulci.
Second to the Zombie was our bicycle tee. I can only imagine what a zombie riding a bicycle might do to the shirt-wearing community.
Extra special thanks to all our friends that made it out to our 10×10 space. It was a long weekend, setting up and tearing down in the rain, but you guys made it worthwhile!
Anyway, the next street-fest/sidewalk event where we’ll be vending is Oak Park’s Avenue Summer Sidewalk Sale on Saturday and Sunday, June 25th and 26th.
New photos of tees coming this week!
Business 3.0
May 28th
I keep hearing people talk about how bad things are in “this economy”. But, to me, there’s a huge upside to an economic depression. While many bigger companies with their rigid, outdated business models are struggling to make money and going broke, it opens the door for all the fresh young companies to jump in and stake their claim. In my opinion, this is a great time to start a new business.
Photo courtesy of Seattle Municipal Archives CC
It seems like, up until about 10 or 15 years ago, companies had to have great customer service and superior knowledge of the products they were selling. Business was done in a very personal way. Enter the age of the internet and things changed. Customers were less concerned with personal service and more concerned with immediate convenience. Everything had to be easy. No one wanted to pick up a phone or wait for anything. The net gave us all access to be lazy. To me, that was business 2.0.
But I am seeing a new trend. People want the best of both worlds and very few companies are prepared for it. Customers still want all the conveniences that modern technology offers, but they are tired of how impersonal businesses have become. It seems that most companies offer either one or the other. They may have great sales people and customer service reps who know the products and services inside and out, but they have no web presence and are completely “old school”. Or, they may have an amazing website that navigates beautifully and makes any purchase as easy as can be, but if you try to actually talk to a live person, you’re in for a nasty surprise. It’s usually impossible to get hold of a real person, and, if you do, they typically know absolutely nothing and act as if you are wasting their time by speaking to them.
Now enter the new wave of business. We have websites that don’t look like they were built in 1994, yet we still actively engage our customers and are available to be real humans at any time.
You can sit back and complain about the economy all you want, but money is still floating around in every corner of this country. People are still doing business. If you can adjust with the times and take good care of people, you will prosper. If you want to maintain your old, outdated business model and blame it on “this economy”, prepare to be replaced.
Welcome to business 3.0!
I Call This Art.
May 23rd
Hi! So you probably already know that Replica Chicago is just Jeremy and me… We work very hard. We always have a ton of “that’d-be-great-on-a-shirt” ideas and finally started a side (big cartel) site: icallthisart.com. We’ve got pretty random thoughts so you might find something you need…. Since we design and hand screen print all the shirts here, we’ll be adding more stuff weekly.
I’ve got to spotlight our Epic Fail Oil Spill tshirt. We’re donating 10% of every sale of this tee to The National Wildlife Federation (nwf.org). NWF is spearheading the local volunteer effort and are committed to this this urgent situation.
P.S. This charcoal gray oil spill tee is printed with phthalate-free, non-leaded pigment, PVC-free inks! (that means it’s eco-friendly.) It’s conveniently available in unisex/standard or ladies fitted sizes.
Mid-May, already? Oh my.
May 14th
Hi Everybody out there in Internet-land! Isn’t it crazy how fast this year is going?
Jeremy and I have been quite busy… We wanted to give an update on just a couple of the fantastic people we’ve been working with over the last week:
Photo courtesy of ScaredPanda.com
Scared Panda
Our friends at Scared Panda have completed a round of shirts with us.
A bit about them:
Scared Panda is a Chicago t-shirt shop whose mission is to engage local artists and the Chicago art community to come up with t-shirt designs that show our unique perspectives of the city. In addition to working with local artists, we have made a pledge to give 10% of each t-shirt sale to a local organization of that shirt’s artist’s choice.
The Bike Meter shirt is one of our favorites.
We admire Scared Panda… Check out their site for more great local tees, benefiting great local groups!
Follow these folks on Twitter: @scaredpanda
Or fan/like them on Facebook: facebook.com/ScaredPanda
Chicago Outfit Roller Derby
Our badass Chicago Outfit Derby Girls have their second bout of the season this weekend against the North Star Rollers. We screen printed some beer koozies so stop by their merch booth and buy one… or six. Doors open at 7; bout at 8. You’re invited! ^_^ Check out the event’s Schmap here: http://schmap.it/7c7ipw
First time reading this blog? Catch up on the Derby goodness by reading this interview with The Outfit’s J1 Abrams.
They’re currently raising funds for American Cancer Society’s 2010 Walk and Roll event this Sunday.
Catch up with the girls on twitter: @chicagooutfit
Or, naturally, on Facebook: here
Charlotte’s Web of Writing and mizChartreuse.com
Need a freelance phenom writer? Reach out to our friend, Charlotte. We just finished redesigning her business cards and are about to go to production.
What she’s up to:
I am currently writing my first book, The Fierce Entrepreneur, which is about female business owners who built their companies from scratch and are doing fabulous things in their respective industries. I’ve also been contracting my writing services for individuals, companies, and nonprofits for over five years, which led to the birth of this entrepreneurial business, Charlotte’s Web of Writing.
Find her on twitter: @mizChartreuse
Or visit mizchartreuse.com and charlottemutesha.com to learn more.
Other Stuffs
If you happen to be in the area, please come to Jim Beam Warehouse’s Battle of the Bands. ((P.S. Clap the loudest for Jeremy’s band: Along the Parallel.))
We’re also working on a ton of new designs for our second retail website: icallthisart.com.
On a personal note, I’m a little over *three months away from my wedding*. If anyone has any thoughts, tips, (or Etsy links), I’d love to see them! I’m going to try my hand at jewelry making for @VonSprinkles and my necklaces… wish me luck. ^_^
