Evan Carmichael tells a viewer wanting to start a menswear line to combine all their interests—fashion, design, architecture, film—into one brand instead of picking one. Work at an existing clothing company first. Steve Jobs fused typography into Apple products and changed everything.
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Combine as many of your interests as possible into your business because it'll help make you stand out from your competition. You'll have more fun, you'll get more customers coming in the door, and you increase the chance of being successful because now you have a way to stand out and be different against everybody else in the market who's doing the same thing. Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. I believe that hungry entrepreneurs deserve help, and today I'm answering a question from one of my readers, Natesh. Who wants to start a menswear design company. So he wrote in, long email, I'll try to summarize. He's been working for 3.5 years getting experience as a fashion stylist. He now wants to start his own business in menswear design. He has an interest in fashion styling, designing, architecture, film, and he wanted to combine it all into a menswear design company and wanted my advice on how to focus and which one to focus on and how to get it to go. So, Nitesh, great question. Here's the thing. I don't want you to pick one or the other. I don't want you to pick being a stylist or being a menswear designer or going into architecture. Combine them. If you're going to start your own line of clothing, then combine all your passions because that's what's going to make your clothing different. Nobody else out there is doing it the same way that you could do it. If you combine your love of film, architecture, design, and style into a clothing line, That's something that people will resonate with. That's going to be different. It's going to be unique. That can help you stand out. And other people who have the same interests will want to buy what you have. If you're copying other people, if you have similar designs, it's not going to help you stand out. So you have to combine all of your passions into that one business to make it amazing. You'll have a lot more fun because you're combining a lot of the stuff that you love to do, and it will resonate with your customers and help you stand out. Before jumping in though, I'd recommend getting some work done at a company that's already done this. It's great that you have some experience as a stylist. Go work for a company who has launched a clothing line. Get some experience, because I don't want to see you drop thousands of dollars into this project and not have it work out because you don't have the experience. So go work for that company, see how they launch their clothes, start your own thing on the side, and make it awesome and pour all of yourself into it. And for anybody else who's thinking of starting a business, you shouldn't be thinking about this or this, because either one you're just going to be doing on an average level. Your strength, your awesomeness, your power comes from combining both of those things together. Combine all of your interests, make your business personal, show people that you care. It's going to be how you stand out. You're going to have a lot more fun with your company. And you're going to attract the right kinds of clients, people who you love doing business with. And I know it's hard, I know it's risky, and I know most people just think about, you know, if I get out there, I want to do what everybody else is doing. You know, that's the safe route. I should only be doing one thing and focus on that. But the real power comes when you can combine it. You look at the really successful entrepreneurs, they had a deep passion for what they were doing, and they brought themselves into it. They took best practices from other industries, things that they love, things that they knew about, and poured it into the business. If you look at the early days of Apple Computer, for example, Steve Jobs, he loved fonts and typography, and he went to classes at university without paying for it, without ever getting a degree in it, because he loved learning about typography and fonts. And when he was designing the Apple computers He said, "We have to have beautiful fonts." Nobody else was doing this, and people thought he was crazy. Like, why do we, who do, why do we care about fonts? And because he combined those passions, he created a product that was different, that was unique, that people cared about, and that people bought. So you have to combine all the various elements, the things that make you unique, the things that make you stand out, and pour that into your business, and tell your story, and bring as much of those different elements as possible. You're going to enjoy your company more, you're going to get more ideal customers, you're going to get more passion and energy for your company, you're going to have a lot more success. Good luck. For those of you watching, like the video, please give it a thumbs up below. It makes me want to do more for you. And I want to hear from you. You have a comment about this video, please leave it below. If you have a question for your company, please leave it underneath. I always love seeing those in the morning when I check in. It makes my day every day. Really, guys, I appreciate it. So thank you, and I'll see you on the next episode.
