Aaron Brandt may be only 16 years of age, but the Niverville High School student has already taught himself some valuable lessons in commerce and entrepreneurship. In December 2019, Brandt launched a line of T-shirts and hoodies emblazoned with his own original logo. Two months later, he’s sold more than 100 articles of clothing and sales are picking up steam.
The idea, he says, began with a sketch that combined identifiable parts of the logos of six different Manitoba sports teams. The result was a synthesis of logos Brandt believed could be marketable.
“When I first realized how well the jet and the Bomber’s W fit together is probably when I was lying in bed and should have been sleeping,” Brandt says. “I first drew the logo when I was sitting in church… and I thought, ‘I’ve got to put that on a T-shirt.’”
By the time the design was complete, Brandt had found ways to incorporate logos from the Jets, Blue Bombers, Goldeyes, Moose, Valour football club, and Winnipeg Ice hockey team.
After that, he set out to research the best avenue to market and sell his design to the public. That’s when he discovered Teespring.com, an e-commerce company that provides a risk-free means to market and sell custom clothing products. Brandt says the online store provides everything from marketing to production and delivery so that sellers can become instant entrepreneurs without any investment in inventory and with limited business savvy.
“I had very little start-up costs because it’s free to sell on [that site],” says Brandt. “I just had to pay to get the logo [converted to a vector file].”
Teespring produces clothing items on demand, charging the seller a base price and allowing them to set their own profit margin. Brandt has since created a variety of social media sites to promote his clothing line to sports fans across the province.
“I had an interview with CJOB and I sold 60 shirts that weekend,” Brandt says.
The young entrepreneur says he’s not too concerned about borrowing parts of copyrighted logos to create his design.
“I did brush up on a little bit of copyright law and found that, basically, the worst they can do is tell me to stop.”
In the meantime, he calls the experience a fun experiment. His real post-graduate aspiration is to pursue a degree in engineering. Even so, Brandt exudes a can-do spirit and encourages other young entrepreneurs not to get stuck in the dream stage of an idea.
“It’s always good to try new things,” he says. “Especially when there’s low risk.”
He recommends that the process of selling a product should begin with lots of research as well as an analysis of other people’s successes and mistakes. Finally, he says, start small and work your way up from there.
