Step one in promoting t-shirts imprinted with pop-culture objects is acquiring permission from rights holders. Kevin Stecko has been doing that since 2000 when he launched 80sTees.com, his t-shirt enterprise. However receiving that permission just isn’t straightforward.

He instructed me, “I began the corporate with designs of He-Man, a toy cartoon. I obtained that license, after which they wouldn’t approve hardly any of my designs.”

Quick ahead to 2023, and 80sTees.com carries 120,000 SKUs with pictures from motion pictures, tv exhibits, comedian books, and extra. He and I just lately mentioned his journey — licensing,  warehousing, drop-shipping, and extra.

The audio of our whole dialog is embedded beneath. The transcript is edited for size and readability.

Eric Bandholz: Inform us about your organization.

Kevin Stecko: It’s 80sTees.com. I began the enterprise in 2000. We promote t-shirts with photos of cartoons, toys, and video video games. I’m carrying my Karate Child shirt at present.

We’ve to acquire licenses from the creator to make use of a lot of these pictures. Early on I had to purchase from the producers that owned the rights. A few of them would maintain inventory, and I may purchase three of a dimension. Some wouldn’t maintain inventory, and I had to purchase a complete print run.

My warehouse had no less than considered one of every thing we offered. I bought the area, 45,000 sq. toes. As quickly as I purchased the constructing, Amazon sellers began consuming away at our enterprise. We by no means wanted the whole area. Now nearly every thing’s printed on demand and drop-shipped. For essentially the most half, so long as there’s no licensing problem, I ship the orders to our suppliers electronically, they usually ship them to our clients.

There are roughly 10 corporations that ship orders for us. They’ll license to us and print on-demand, and we listing it on our web site.

Bandholz: How do you discover the rights holders and negotiate the charges?

Stecko: There are a few methods to search out them. I usually begin by going to the web site and sending an e mail asking who I speak to about licensing. There’s an enormous commerce present in Las Vegas known as Licensing Expo that’s useful.

For those who’re prepared to spend $3 million, Disney will most likely speak to you for a license — whether or not it’s basic Disney, Star Wars, or Marvel, they’re all going to value a ton of cash licensing-wise.

Hasbro just isn’t as grasping. I’ve a cope with that firm for Transformers and G.I. Joe.

The large corporations have comparable authorized agreements. Some will need the everyday 10% royalty for t-shirts. Some will need extra, however it’s often between 10% and 12%. In the usual approval course of, we generate a mock-up of the design after which ship it to them. If that will get accepted, the following step is a manufacturing pattern. As soon as they approve the pattern, we are able to go reside with it.

Bandholz: How do they know what number of gross sales you may have?

Stecko: It’s primarily a belief factor. Within the settlement, I might comply with an audit. If my numbers are mistaken, I must pay for the audit and for errors or under-reporting. It often doesn’t matter to us as a result of we’ve assured such a lot of gross sales. I might pay a royalty provided that gross sales exceed that quantity.

For accounting to the rights holder, we’ll obtain a quarterly report of our gross sales for that merchandise. It exhibits what we offered the product for and what number of. Then we ship them these stories and pay the royalty if relevant.

Shopping for a license is at all times a threat. We by no means know what’s going to promote or whether or not the license holder will approve our designs. I’ve signed offers the place we couldn’t get something accepted.

I began the corporate with designs of He-Man, a toy cartoon. I obtained that license, after which they wouldn’t approve hardly any of my designs. We might make a design and ship it to them for his or her approval. They practically at all times responded, “Nope, can’t do this.” So we let that deal expire. I’m fairly positive we misplaced cash on it as a result of we had so little merchandise to promote.

Bandholz: What number of SKUs are in your web site?

Stecko: We’ve over 10,000 designs. Each design has from 5 to 12 sizes. So 120,000 SKUs. The navigation for our website is exclusive. It’s arrange for looking. We’ve an enormous menu bar that expands into an accordion-style menu. We wish guests to see all our stuff, not only one merchandise.

Bandholz: You promote on Fb.

Stecko: Earlier than the pandemic, we spent lower than $100 per day on Fb. When the stimulus checks went out, we noticed how nicely the Fb Advertisements have been doing, so we saved rising the funds to the purpose the place it was our greatest month ever in Might 2020.

Some days, even now, the advertisements will suck, or we don’t get the variety of conversions because the prior week. However total, nothing comes near Fb. We now spend upwards of $500 per day.

Bandholz: You’re semi-retired now.

Stecko: Right. I don’t have a pet mission. I help my staff, and my spouse and I are sometimes free throughout the day, and we go on a hike or exit to lunch. I labored onerous for a really very long time, so I don’t thoughts the downtime.

Bandholz: The place can folks help you?

Stecko: Our website is 80sTees.com. I’m on Twitter and LinkedIn.