Today we’d like to introduce you to James Farrell.
James, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Thrive Custom Apparel was started with no money, a $200 loan and a dream for financial freedom. After years of mindless jobs, looking for fulfillment, happiness, and security; constantly coming up short on bills and confidence in my own ability to thrive in life, I decided to take control of it.
Once upon a time, I was an entirely different person. I was depressed, angry, in trouble with the law and making bad decision after bad decision. I had always had an entrepreneurial spirit, but never enough discipline to follow through with anything worth mentioning. One day I found myself at a crossroads in my life where it came down to literally life or death. I was in such a dark place, my initial choice was death. To give up. I had to really sit down to think and decide, “What do I want my life to be?”, “Who do I want to be remembered by?”, “Is this all life has to offer?”. While those are all pivotal questions we all need to ask ourselves, it was the last one that really made me think. I wanted to experience all this life had to offer, and more. I wanted to thrive.
Along with many changes in my life, thinking and discipline, Thrive Custom Apparel was up and running within 60 days.
Today Thrive is a brand for people who want their voice to be heard and want to experience all that life has to offer. Customized clothing is a great way to show your individuality, express who you are and make a statement. We’ like Thrive to be a brand that will be seen as a symbol of taking risks, living outside your comfort zone and pushing yourself to your limits.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
As any business owner will tell you, starting a business from literally nothing is akin to David Copperfield doing his magic: It looks smooth and somewhat seamless from outside, but the show is a result of hours and hours of hard work, dedication and practice behind the scenes. It hasn’t been easy by any means, but it has been such an amazing ride so far!
This journey so far has been filled with ups, downs, and problems I didn’t even know existed. I had a few small home-based businesses in high school and college but were all nothing more than side hustles. Creating Thrive from the ground up has been one of the most challenging, yet fulfilling experiences of my life.
One of the greatest challenges so far has been balancing work and family. Due to the nature of the “customizing” industry, a single order can take a while to finalize and iron out all the details. I often work overtime t make sure a customer is certain about the order they are about to place and that Thrive knows every detail of what they want so when it’s time for pickup or delivery, there are no surprises.
Please tell us about Thrive Custom Apparel.
In addition to our online shop, Thrive Custom Apparel, as the name states, prints custom graphics, photos, quotes and more on all kinds of apparel: t-shirts, hoodies, long sleeve shirts, v-necks, sweatpants and just about any type of clothing! But beyond apparel, we also print hats, signs & banners, koozies, promotional products, car and wall decals, mugs and tumblers, and even temporary tattoos! Along with our printing services, we believe in giving our customers a one-stop shop experience, so if you need a logo printed, but only have an idea, Thrive will design the graphic for you!
Although custom t-shirt shops are a dime a dozen in DFW, Thrive Custom Apparel is one of the very few who does not require a minimum amount to order, we do not have any setup fees, and we do our very best to keep the pricing structure as simple as possible so customers are fully aware and confident in what they are paying for. We take pride in our interactions with our customers being professional, yet down to earth. Thrive is not a big corporate, mass-produced company, churning out cookie cutter designs day in and day out while reading from our sales script. We form relationships with everyone who connects with us.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
If I had to start all over again, I would definitely have put more time into the practices and policies of Thrive. Although the launch was a success by most standards, we got so many orders right off the cuff that it caught me off guard. Trying to keep up with everything and making sure it all went smoothly was a challenge, to say the least.
Although every product was printed with a smile on my face due to my excitement and love of owning my own full-time business, it was chaos at first. A beautiful chaos. It took us a little bit to work all the kinks out and formulate a solid system so things went smoothly.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ThriveCustomApparel.com
- Phone: 817-893-4117
- Email: ThriveCustomApparel@gmail.com
- Instagram: Instagram.com/ThriveCustomApparel Instagram.com/ThriveCustom
- Facebook: Facebook.com/ThriveCustomApparel
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