I remember the night so clearly. Sitting in my lounge room with my laptop waiting to unlock my website and be flooded with orders from all the people who have been messaging the Instagram pages saying how they can’t wait to buy.

I was already doing the math in my head of how much money I was going to make. But this SERIOUSLY was not the case. All those people weren’t waiting online to purchase, and we didn’t sell out in 5 minutes like most ‘streetwear’ brands at the time would.

The reality was that I made 3 sales that night and one was my brother Adam. To be honest with you, I can’t really remember how that felt, whether I was disappointed/underwhelmed or if I was happy that I made 2 sales from two people I have never met.

However, I do remember the constant thoughts and realisation of how f**ken hard this mission was going to be. Look at it this way… I was an 18-year-old kid with; NO business experience, NO fashion experience, NO social media following, NO personal brand and just all-round NO F**KEN idea what I was doing.

Something about that just made me want to succeed even more. I knew that I really did start from nothing, so I had nothing to lose. The $2,000 that I started the business with bought approximately $1000 worth of blank t-shirts, $200 of plastisol transfers and $800 was spent on a heat press.

Looking back, I probably should’ve started with more capital as it would have definitely helped push the brand. I speak to many brand owners now and when we talk about how much capital we started with and they CAN’T believe me when I tell them I only invested $2,000.

Usually, the answer is $10,000, $15,000 or even onwards of $20,000 + but honestly the fact I started the way I did and used what I had as best as possible is part of my story and I wouldn’t change that.

The early days of the brand consisted of me standing at the heat press for hours, lining up the transfers perfectly as I didn’t want to mess any up because this would cost me $$$ I just couldn’t afford to lose.

The point of this Blog is to shine some light on how tough the early days can be. To all the kids who message me on Instagram asking for advice on starting your clothing brands, the early days are going to be hard.

You’re going to experience issues and slow points where you question whether this is going to work. Every brand goes through it. My advice:  be creative, figure it out and move on to the next problem. Work harder than anyone else and I have no doubt that you too will make something out of nothing.