

Lessons Learned from Going "Profitable" in Under an Hour - fjw
http://frankjwu.com/posts/lessons-learned-from-going-profitable-in-under-an-hour/

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svnexp
Distribution. Distribution. Distribution. Most of us (myself included) tend to
make the mistake of focusing purely on product and neglecting distribution,
which should be equally important.

Thanks for sharing.

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jellyksong
This strangely parallels the exact experience my friend and I had making a
website for the families in Newtown [1]. Especially the part about being
ignored on HN ;)

The author kind of discounts the power of "the press" though. From our
experience, if there's even one good article out there about your cause, other
reporters will contact you about it, and you'll get the word out much faster.

[1] www.letterstosandyhook.com

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fjw
Author here, I really like what you're doing for Newtown. Best of luck to you
with that!

As far as the press goes, you're definitely correct about other reporters
reaching out. My main point there is that we found more success by personally
contacting people (press included) about what we were doing, rather than
sitting around, waiting, and hoping for them to come to us. We badgered
newspaper reporters and called local TV stations to make sure that we were
being talked about and that people knew how to get involved with our relief
effort.

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aspinner
Very awesome. How much did you guys raise in the first few weeks?

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fjw
Once we addressed the initial concerns, people were much more willing to
donate to us and we raised around $1500 in the first three weeks. After that,
it was just a matter of packaging and shipping out the t-shirts.

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rhizome
How did you select a shirt-printing provider?

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fjw
A local store offered to print the designs in full color on high quality
cotton shirts at an exceptionally low price. We contacted many providers to
try and find the lowest possible price and we were fortunate enough to gain
their support.

If you're interested in details, it was Campus Customs in New Haven, CT.
<http://www.campuscustoms.com/>

