Jerkass Clothing Company
We’ve had our watchful eye on Jerkass Clothing for quite sometime. They’ve always managed to be quick to market with funny parody shirts, notable some SNL related winners. P is for Portman and the recent SNL Digital Short with Justin Timberlake, Dick in a Box. Fortunately for us Angela Lee has provided us a little insight into what makes Jerkass tick. Many thanks.
Give us an overview your shop. What kind of merchandise, style, theme, etc
My shop rules. I’ve got something offensive enough for every occasion!
How long have you had the shop / been selling shirts?
The Jerkass Clothing Co. has been online for about a year and a half.
How did you get started selling shirts?
I started in college creating dumb tees for family and friends. I looked into setting up a biz, but the costs and resources needed to store, print, process, and ship items were more than I wanted to take on. It really wasn’t until I found Spreadshirt that I decided to really make a go of it.
Do you have a physical store?
Nope. It’s the internet for me. Thanks Al Gore.
Anything interesting about your name? A story behind it?
Out of nowhere, on a crisp fall day in 2005, my three-year old son called my husband a jerkass. The rest is history.
What are some of your most popular items?
A few of the favs…
Do you have a particular creative process you follow?
Nope. But fruity drinks are usually involved.
What inspires you?
The cast of the View and American Gladiators.
What celebrity would you most like to see spotted wearing one of your shirts? And what shirt?
Tom Cruise wearing my “Scientology - You had me at hello” t-shirt.
Do you have any additional stores or business you’d like us to know about?
The t-shirt bizness is going great. I’ve recently expanded a bit and gotten involved in a new startup called ZingFu. ZingFu.com is a twisted photo-sharing web site that allows users to upload pictures and add them to magazine covers, billboards, celebrity photos and more. Users can add speech or thought bubbles to their unique Zings and easily post them to MySpace, Friendster, Bebo, or anywhere else that 40-year old men pretend to be 14-year old girls.
And of course, you can print your Zings on t-shirt!
What advice would you offer someone starting out selling t-shirts?
Work is a four letter word. Do something you love and you’ll never work a day in your life. If you can create interesting messages and artwork, and if your designs are unique, you’ll succeed.
Hind sight is 20/20. What do you wish you would have done differently? Is there a trend you missed? Marketing angle you were late jumping on?
I just wish I had started earlier. It’s pretty easy to get up and running nowadays. So there is a lot of competition. At the end of the day though, it comes down to the designs. And the Jerkass designs are about as dumb as they come. Cha-ching.
