There was a very interesting presentation today in the IV theater which worked just as well as a sales pitch as it did as an informative discussion (I bought one of the T-shirts). Johnny Cupcakes was clearly an entrepreneur from an early age, something which he seemed proud to point out. He seemed to also get a kick out of the simplicity of his product offering. He began his presentation by stating that he would tell us how he “started a multi-million dollar company with no education and selling t-shirts with cupcakes on them.” This idea kept me interested and I think that he made a number of very important points, which I will try to point out.
Johnny’s story began by discussing many of his childhood antics. He highlighted some of his early entrepreneurial adventures by pointing out the classic example of running lemonade stand as a child, noting that a few dollars as a child felt like what a few hundred would now. His entrepreneurial behavior continued into high school where he began buying prank supplies and candy wholesale and then selling them to other high school students. These ventures ended however when someone had an allergic reaction to some of the itching powder he was selling and his candy sales began to interfere with the schools own sale of candy. At this point he graduated high school and gave college a try. College wasn’t his thing and he left. He began making buttons with a $100 button machine he bought online for bands and other events and selling them. He got a partner to help him with this but then his partner got a girlfriend and the business eroded. Later, he took job at a record store where people frequently called him Johnny wrench, Johnny record, Johnny cupcake etc. It was Johnny cupcake which stuck, and since he was in a band at the time which was making t-shirts to promote their music he threw in an additional order for a t-shit which just said Johnny Cupcake. After receiving several comments on the shirt he decided to have more made and began selling them out of the back of his crappy car while working at the record shop. He wore the shirt at his concerts and they were a hit, people, and members of other bands wanted to buy them.
Interestingly Johnny started realizing that these t-shirts could become a lucrative business as he was making more money selling them than he was working in the record shop. He quit his job and began selling the shirts while on tour with the band to local clothing companies where he was touring. Many of the clothing companies took orders and at this point he made the decision that he had to go 110% one direction. He could either go 110% towards the band, or 110% toward the Jonny Cupcakes shirts. Since he was tired of sleeping on the floor with a bunch of other lonely guys he decided he would continue full force with the t-shirt company. At this point he had come up with many more designs and had many different t-shirt design offerings.
As he continued to make sales people would ask him whether he was going to be at this tradeshow or at that tradeshow, he had no idea what a trade show even was so looked it up and decided that he would like to try it. At the trade show he mentioned that there were many offers to buy his shirts from large companies like Urban Outfitters and Nordstrom but at this point he made what seems like a crucial realization. He noticed that two kids at the tradeshow had the exact same shoes as him and though about how much “it sucked” when someone had the same thing as you and he mentioned the idea of girls at a prom with the same prom dress. At this point he decided to rip up the orders from the large companies and decided that he did not want to mass market his product.
In order to continue sale of his product he set up a website which took orders and he began the process of getting an office near his home out of which he could sell, store, and ship orders. He commented that the ability to do all of these things out the same space saved a lot of money and helped him take his focus off of things that weren’t going so well since he could always put his attention into something else since it was all right there in one place. He continually commented on how well viral marketing worked in his favor, “one person told ten people, ten people told a hundred people, he kept repeating. He used this idea in his marketing as well. He opted not to spend money on advertising, but rather to keep that money in the business by putting it into new products or some promotion somewhere.
The viral marketing worked and as he opened up a store in a larger city outside of Boston more than 400 people lined up to be the first to buy the shirts. He commented on how much time he spent on the actual design of the store, and how people told him he was crazy to move from his low rent office space near his home for $700 a month to the new space which cost $7000 a month. Obviously biting the bullet and going for it, “taking the risk” as he put it, worked for him and his sales increased tremendously. He said that he sold enough t-shirts the first day to cover a month’s rent. He got a lot of free advertising from the media who came in and wanted to share his story, he even made the front page of several papers! He again took a large risk when he went to open up a Los Angeles store way across the country. He took 6 months to get the store design perfect, commenting on the special features of his design and how much thought actually went into the layout. Again, his meticulous planning and habit for risk taking worked out and he sold enough t-shirts on the opening day to pay 5 of the 6 months rent that he had had to pay while developing the store.
He made several comments about the importance of packaging saying that it is really like free advertising for you and that people will keep it around their office, room, etc. contributing to the viral marketing. On the best things that I think he said during the talk was that you need to pick something and go 110% after that. “If you are in a relationship, going to school, trying to start a company, and partying with friends you are really just half-assing four things.” That was my biggest take away from this talk. It was interesting to me that he does not drink and has never done drugs so he really does put all of his time into his business but it seems to be very rewarding for him, and his story is inspiring. One other thing that I found interesting was how he quantified having a girlfriend. Saying that well, I would normally work until about 3am but when I had a girlfriend we would hang out do dinner and a movie and then go to bed and “considering that I would meet her at about noon and do this 3 days a week I was really losing about 40 hours of working time a week.” “I still love her and think about her and always wanted to make her happy but I just don’t have enough time right now to worry about someone else besides myself and my business. I think that this was an interesting note to end on and really illustrated how devoted he was to this business and to his customers, noting that “he wouldn’t sell his company for all the money in the world.” This was a refreshing idea in today’s business climate where people are often too busy looking at dollar signs to see those other things of value.
Anyway, I know this is very unrelated to energy conversion but I found it very informative and inspiring.
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