Let Them Hate

// I was excited.

It was a Sunday afternoon and I had this idea. The whole premise of a 'clothing' brand arrived into my head.

I am a connoisseur of fine t-shirts and baseball caps, just last week when I visited the new co-working space in Bournemouth, I was complimented on my t-shirt. I don't like to fit in with mainstream brands and I like to seek out the niche t-shirts - my particular favourite is a brand from the USA called Riot Society and you won't find the t-shirts that often as the brand is based in the USA and they don't offer international shipping.

The bears on the front of my t-shirt, whilst being a huge part of the Riot Society brand, are also a part of my identity and I will seek out a way to get those t-shirts whenever I can.

The same goes for a baseball cap - I must own in the region of 15-20 caps in varying states of condition, again my favourite brand being ThruDark, a clothing brand based in Poole run by ex-special forces and its a brand on the rise.

Anyway, I digress - I had this idea of not wearing my bear branded t-shirts, my baseball caps from ThruDark but actually wearing my own stuff and creating an identity around that.

But what could I call it?

That's when the name popped into my head - Let Them Hate.

// The Brand Identity

Why 'Let Them Hate'?

It had to be controversial in my head - why fit in? And I wanted something that stood apart from anything else - I wanted to be 'different'.

The idea of standing up for yourself and being your own person resonates with me and quite often, when you do choose your own path, you are held to a different standard and people will often judge you for following a specific path because they want you to follow their path.

That's not how I operate and when I created this 'clothing brand' - I wanted it to be something that stood for something. I mean, I love my bears and I love the whole design aesthetic of the ThruDark clothing brand but there wasn't a message behind it and thats what I wanted to embrace.

The idea is that it's better to be known, even if its for negative reasons, than to be ignored or forgotten.

Let them hate.

In life, even if others criticise or dislike you, as long as they remember your name and what you stand for, you have made a lasting impression that could potentially benefit you in the long run.

I didn't want that to focus on the negatives of being 'hated' - but I wanted the fact that you've chosen your own path to be the point of separation. That was my focus and the name 'Let Them Hate' was born.

// The How

It’s quite easy nowadays to 'create' a clothing brand and I'm fairly handy with Photoshop so I set about creating some assets which I could whack onto some t-shirts and hats. I wanted to create something that I would wear - but I didn't want to fill my home with clothes which I may not even sell so I set about looking for options of 'instant fulfilment' and crazily, you'll be spoilt for choice if you ever wanted to head down that route.

As I've mentioned on previous blogs before, I was deep in the Squarespace infrastructure (hooray!) and their provider of choice was a company called Printful - it's a company which allows you to create and sell custom on-demand products and the creation process was fairly straightforward.

In the past, whilst supporting niche brands, I've indirectly bought products from Printful and so, I knew the type of clothes I wanted to stock and the variant types - I was one step ahead as I didn't need to test any of the many products on their site - I was already in the zone.

'Creating' something on the Printful website does take a little getting used to but you have the option of having a printed or an embroided garment and the mockups are great for adding the products to your website.

You just need to do some work on getting the logo's, brand collateral and images all line up and take into account what the standard layouts might look like - there is also some (really annoying) work to be done on how the company carries out the fulfilment of the orders - they will typically take the money from your bank account for the order and then deliver the cash (and the small profit) back to your account a few days later.

I don't understand why they don't use the cash which the customer pays to fulfil the order and when I got my first order, it messed me up a little.

If you ever want to launch a brand using Printful, I would highly recommend having a different source of funding (ideally in a separate bank account) so when a client pays for some merch, it's all dealt with away from your normal finances and once I'd figured this out, it was fine.

I have a separate business account for my business (which is the right way) and I wish I'd set this all up properly before I launched as it defaulted to pay for the merchandise from my personal account because it was linked with Squarespace (which was annoying).

// The Launch

I've been subjected to enough album launches, social media teases and merch drops to be accustomed to how things should be launched and in hindsight, I'd have done things differently.

In my head, I was marketing to the world and getting interest in my products from the (very little) posts that I did on my Instagram stories but in reality, I'd sent out maybe one or two emails to my email newsletter readership, which at the time was nudging close to 90 subscribers and the two/three posts that I made on my Instagram stories probably reached around 100 people - and they wouldn't have paid attention for more than a few seconds at most.

I was, in my head, teasing this clothing brand online but actually, I wasn't really telling anyone about it.

My close circle - people I network with and people (I'd just started to) work with knew about the products but actually, that again was probably less than 50 people.

So, if we add up the MAXIMUM amount of people I could have reached with my limited audience - it was likely to be around 200 people.

That's not enough people to set the world alight with a trail-blazing clothing brand made on a third party website.

It was good thought right?

Who am I kidding, it wasn't the right thing to do and it was a little distracting but when I look back, it offered me plenty of lessons.

// The Lessons

Selling through a third party website to launch your own merch is never going to make you a ton of money - I have to admit that when I launched it all, that was never my first consideration - it was never to make money and sail off into the sunset because when you're selling a t-shirt for £25 and only making £2.50, you have to sell a lot of t-shirts to make a ton of money and when you've only marketed the product to around 200 people, it's never going to happen.

I was trying to build something without ever identifying a need for that clothing - the age old mistake when creating something.

Back in COVID, I created a small brand called SalesChange and it was at the height of my Instagram growth days - I would show up on my Instagram stories daily with my story viewership regularly hitting close to 1000 viewers, I would also be on the front of every Instagram carousel I created in my own branded merch (with the SalesChange logo) and I lost count of the people who asked me where they could buy those t-shirts and hats I created.

That was the right time to create something but I never did - it was my intention to sell those items but I never did because I didn't know about the concept of on-demand printing and my perception was that I would need to fund those clothes.

The right time is never the right time and conversely, you might think it's the right time but you'll never know.

It's very hard to make people care about something that you've created - no-one is ever going to be as passionate about it as much as you and it's why, even with this blog, you just have to keep going and find a way to communicate that message to those around you.

When it does 'hit' - it can hit hard and you might make a success but you have to have an audience to make something work, as I launched with very few numbers showing any interest, it was very difficult to get any interest and more importantly, get any feedback on the messaging - I mean even with the best A/B testing, you're not going to get the data you need.

// The Closure

So it launched, I waited...

I waited a little longer...

Then the first order landed - my long term friend Julio paid for a hoodie. It failed on my side because of that payment structure thing that I mentioned before - he didn't get to see that failure, it was just raising alarms on my side of the fulfilment process but hey, I got that first order.

My clothing would be in the world!

But that's how it stayed - I'd made my £2.50 and for three months, I didn't sell one single thing more. Nothing. Nada.

So far, in the world, there were three people wearing my clothes in the world - well, two.. my wife borrowed my t-shirt once so that doesn't really count, at this point I was clutching at straws.

I had all this enthusiasm and appetite for selling my stuff but I had fallen foul of too much enthusiasm and no delivery - there was no marketing happening, no discussions around the brand and I had actually stopped wearing the t-shirt...

The thing became an afterthought - it was no longer a passion of mine because it brought me no joy, it wasn't something I wanted to pursue but I still included it in the newsletter as a little link to something else I'd created.

For 4 months, I didn't receive a single sale.

And then, ping. I got a new order.

I literally said "What the fuck!?" out loud when that second order came through - it went through perfectly this time as the set up was perfect and I'd got my second order.

Another £2.50 banked.

That made all my work worth £5 overall and it was at this point that I made the decision to close.

Yeah, but Matt you might have just landed on something and that second order might have been the flood gates opening - it's what I thought and I toyed with the idea to keep it open, do some marketing, do something about it but actually - that second order was the nail in the coffin.

It was the thing that made me make the decision to close.

Closing the brand wasn’t an easy decision, but it was the right one. I learned that starting something just for the sake of doing it isn’t enough. Passion needs direction, and ideas need an audience. Without those two key ingredients, even the best concepts can fall flat.

I’ve since realised that success doesn’t always come from the first try - or even the second or third. It’s the lessons you take away that hold the real value.

For me, “Let Them Hate” wasn’t a financial win, but it was a masterclass in humility, creativity, and the reality of turning an idea into something tangible. At least I tried - I'd rather do something and fail than not do something and have the thought of 'what if' hanging over me.

And, ironically, it also taught me the importance of knowing when to stop. Sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is walk away and take what you've learned into your next venture. That’s not failure - it’s growth.

So, the brand is gone. But the mindset? That stays.

Standing out, taking risks, and embracing individuality will always be a part of who I am. Whether it’s in business, creativity, or just life in general, I’ll keep carving my own path, and yes, letting them hate.