From November 2022 to September 2023, I was involved in a startup Wonder Clothing while I attended LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. So far, I learned more in that experience than just about any other experience I have had. Even two years removed from it, it is a lot to reflect on holistically, so I will be writing about five things I learned from Wonder Clothing.

1. Team

I recall [this tweet]{https://x.com/paulg/status/1752628510391210456} by Paul Graham.

If you’re less than 23 and your startup has more than 4 founders, the reason is probably not because you needed that many but because you had a big group of friends and didn’t want to exclude anyone.

I met these two guys who said they wanted me to join their clothing startup, I agreed, and then they recruited two more. I ended up being the first co-founder to exit. With five, it became confusing what was delegated to who, with multiple roles split up between people such as social media presence. As a result, our social media presence was lacking. It frequent where there would be a lot of talk of what was to be done, but it would fall between the cracks between all the people. Incorporation took a very long time because one of the co-founders was located in another state. Design was split between me and another person, but that actually proved to be a good thing because I think we both learned a lot from each other about design.

2. Mission

Streetwear clothing was already an oversaturated market when we entered it, and while we were the only people doing it on our campus and it caught on a little bit there, we had a difficult time carving a niche. We sold out, but the cycle time was about three months, which is too long. Having a cultural impact is important to me, but doing it through clothing specifically was not my first choice of avenue, so I wasn’t on too on board with the mission or very committed, and the I think the company suffered because of this.

3. Product

Our first couple attempts to procure an overseas supplier resulted in us losing money for no product, which might have killed a startup with less determined people. However a couple months after we lost a lot of money from a failed supply procurement attempt, I decided I would try and get the money back, and succeeded at that. I remember we spent a lot of time getting all the details exactly right for the hoodies, including material composition and thickness; size, positioning, and printing material of the graphic; alignment on the SVGs; and tailoring dimensions; and I found that process extremely rewarding when we finally got the product. Once we got our first shipment of product, everything (including an order system, packaging, and shipping) went smoothly.

4. Communication

We primarily used Notion and a group chat. It worked, but things still got done behind schedule. If something was wrong, it worked out better if something was said. A key moment I remember is when I had to change a font in a design last minute because I retroactively remembered that font needed royalties to be used commercially.

5. Design

When designing clothing, it must be kept in mind that the human body is a weird-shaped thing with a limited amount of surface area to put designs. Too much and you don’t know where too look, not enough and your design will fall flat unless you are very clever or going purely off of logo recognition. With clothing, the two best places to put a graphic are the middle of the torso, a natural tendency; or the upper-left chest, a cultural tendency. I developed a specific skillset to boil a design down to only what was essential while still keeping everything key to the design. This design skill has carried over into other areas, such as the design for this website.