Collection of my views, interests, and life experiences (some of which tend to be related to cheapness)
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Making Money with CafePress?When Ricky Williams won the Heisman trophy back in the 90's, there was a T-shirt that got famous in Texas. It was an ingenious design that was sold outside of the typical stores since it wasn't an officially sanctioned Longhorn item. However, it didn't infringe on any trademarks. It was a silhouette of a football player in the Heisman pose with dreadlocks (Williams was famous in Texas for both his dreadlocks and his Heisman).
Since then, I've been thinking of similar creative opportunities. Back in the 90's, you had to be not only creative, but also very industrious to get an idea to the marketplace. Now it's a lot easier. There's a website called CafePress that I've used to try to sell some of my ideas. The nice thing about CafePress is that you can upload a design and start selling it on all kinds of clothes with no startup fee. Cafepress sets a base price for all of its items. You can then set the selling price above the base price for a profit. The only problem is that they have pretty high base prices. Also, there's a minimum level that you have to make in your profits before CafePress will send you a check. But for someone that has a creative and cheap side, this is great site.
I'm very glad that it doesn't cost anything to create a CafePress store since it's very hard to make a sale. I've tried twice without much luck. Albeit, my ideas were no where close to the Ricky Williams T-shirt. But I was hoping for a little better luck.
My first idea was trying to capitalize on San Antonio's 2003 NBA championship and also David Robinson's retirement. I wanted to combine San Antonio's victory, David Robinson's "The Admiral" fame, and Duncan and Robinson's status as the twin towers. At the same time I wanted to make sure not to infringe on any of the NBA trademarks. Here's the store on CafePress.
After last Thursday's amazing Laker victory, I came up with another idea. The Lakers pulled off the most amazing last second shot that I've ever seen. And that was after an amazing shot Tim Duncan made in the last 5.4 seconds in which he shot above Shaq at the top of the key. The shot went in and there was only 0.4 seconds left on the clock for LA. Surely, 0.4 seconds isn't enough time to do anything. Well, Peyton did a super pass right to Derek Fisher who did an amazing twist, jump, and shot in one quick motion. And sure enough, it left his hands before the 0.4 seconds finished. Absolutely amazing.
Although I'm a Spurs fan, I saw an opportunity here. I thought there should be 10,000's of serious Laker fans and perhaps 1000's of Derek Fisher fans. Seems like there could be demand for a memento of this incredible ending. Well, I thought of this elegantly simple way to memorialize this. A big bold number 0.4 on a shirt, cap or bumper sticker could be a perfect symbol to memorialize this feat for true LA fans or Derek Fisher fans. Another nice thing about this is that there is no trademark violation.
Well, I created the store ZeroPointFour on CafePress on Friday morning. I did a few advertising attempts, and waited. Well, looks like this may not be any better than last year's attempt. Oh Well... Maybe one of these days, one of my creative ideas will spread like wild fire on the net. I have a feeling it's a long shot. I guess it's my version of a lottery...
