Hellcats on Growing an Audience, Brand Cohesiveness, & Selling Merch

<h2>Hellcats on Building Your Brand and Growing Your Audience Before Slanging Merch</h2><p>It seems everyone and their grandma wants to start a clothing line or slang merch these days (I say this because I’m guilty of both).</p><p>I get it, you want to see your work tangibly exist and find its way into the little nooks and crannies of this planet.</p><p>It’s dope to manifest your idea in your noggin’ to something you can physically touch. However, when you’re just starting off, you gotta keep your expectations in check, as finding success in these realms takes far more work and time than you realize.</p><p>Everyone wants the end results, but they don’t have the patience nor grit to put in the grind over time to tap into that success.</p><p>If you’re a long-time listener, you know I’ll never sugar coat shit here. I don’t believe in fluff or telling you what I think you want to hear.</p><p>You can’t just show up and put something into this world and expect people to buy it.</p><p><i>Trust me, I’ve been there and have learned plenty of hard lessons.</i></p><p>I spent 4 years building a clothing brand outside of college with my homie Dustin McLaughin aka DMAC aka Dusty Dink grassroots-style. We didn’t gain serious traction until year three.</p><p>Sadly, long-term success wasn’t in the cards for us, but I learned a lot—it’s what spawned Perspective-Collective..</p><p>Then two years into Perspective-Collective, I started slanging products on my own. I thought, because I had an Instagram audience of over 10k, that slanging 300 5x7” Change Your Perspective custom-lettered letterpress prints for less than $10 would be a breeze.</p><p>I tied a meaningful story to it and built a whole launch around it <i>including</i> a dope, inspirational video DMac created for me...I’m still sitting on just under 100 of those left, and the majority of them I’ve gifted away to people.</p><p><i>Selling your shit is hard work</i>. It’s not impossible, but I feel there are solid guidelines and phases to work through in order to get to a point