Why My Clothing Brand Failed

Running a business takes a lot of work. You can attest if you have ever tried to build a business of any sort. When I was 17 years old, I decided to start a business. At first, I did not know that was what I was doing, but it quickly grew into a small business.

My small business was a clothing brand called OMNICIDE. I had many ups and downs in this endeavor, which eventually collapsed. In this post, I explain how that came to be.

But first, I will give some background on how I became interested in owning and running a clothing brand.

The Beginnings

The year was 2017, and I was in my senior year of high school. I did not have an idea of what I wanted to do. I was interested in a couple of things at the time. I had a gaming YouTube channel, did some graphic design, and my tiny friend group and I loved clothing and underground music.

I loved expressing myself through clothing. The only problem was no clothing brand made the aesthetic I was interested in. This aesthetic was the grungy clothing style which later developed into the "e-boy" clothing niche.

I always thought I was a trendsetter. I painted my nails black before it was cool, had the Bieber hair before it blew up, and all of that. That is not to say I was the first to start this. I was probably delusional about my trend-setting-ness.

The point is, no one really made what I liked to wear, and I always toyed with the idea of making clothing. The next logical step for me was to make my own.

After researching how to put designs on T-shirts for weeks, I bought a heat-press machine, vinyl cutting machine, tables, and other necessities to start making clothing for around $2,000 total. That was about all I had saved working part-time at the time.

I set everything up in my family's basement and made that my workstation. I had already made my first designs before buying production gear, and once the equipment was in place, I was ready.

I printed my first hoodie using the vinyl cutter and a black Gildan blank. After school and work, I spent every waking moment creating designs, building the website, marketing, researching production logistics, learning shipping, and basically everything else.

I fell in love with it. I could do it forever, and nothing else mattered. I went from being a depressed kid to having real purpose. It was one of the best feelings I have ever had.

That feeling lasted about a year and a half and a couple of drops later. After graduation, I could focus harder on the brand. I grew it to around 2,000 followers on Instagram. Then things took a turn.

The Downfall

In early 2020, COVID hit the United States and affected everyone, including me. The world just stopped. At the time, I was living in New York and working as a restaurant manager, then went on temporary unemployment.

With the sudden free time, I started learning new skills and picked up new hobbies, including investing, frugality, and minimalism. Those interests replaced old ones, including my clothing brand.

Clothes became less intriguing. I started spending more mental energy on the stock market, real estate investing, and long-term finance. But it was not just COVID and those new interests.

After leaving high school, I no longer had a natural social environment where fashion was part of my identity every day. I became more of a homebody and introvert than I already was. Those shifts created the perfect storm to fall out of love with clothing.

I still worked on the brand into 2021, which became the most successful year in its history. But the last nail in the coffin was moving to Florida.

In late November 2021, I moved from New York to Florida alone. Before that, I lived with my parents and used most of my income to fund side hustles, including the brand. Moving changed my financial reality. The lack of capital plus my declining interest made it clear this chapter was ending.

Even so, the brand reached 4,000+ followers, 40,000+ store visitors, 200+ total orders, and some genuinely dope clothes.

The Lessons I Learned

While the brand is dead, I do not regret it. I handled almost every role myself: marketer, graphic designer, accountant, customer support, website designer, model, and operator.

It was one of the hardest and most stressful things I have ever done. Everything that came after felt easier by comparison.

I learned how to run a business end to end, and those skills now fuel my current work. I specialize in design and website conversion strategy because I lived the pressure of building a brand from scratch.

Without that brand, you probably would not be reading this right now. I am proud of what I built.