First impression (Let’s rip off the bandaid): The packaging came in very standard. No branding, no custom polymailer. At first, that felt like a red flag. It looked a little cheap compared to more personalized packaging I’ve used before. Then I noticed they ship through stamps.com, which told me something important. They’re likely optimizing for commercially viable shipping at scale instead of aesthetics. Less romantic, more realistic. Personally, I do prefer branded packaging. MyMerchGuy nailed that part and it felt more personal. Might not be a big deal to you or your customers but that’s just my little pet peeve. However, the shirt itself changed the entire perception. - Print quality was clean and accurate. Colors matched the design closely, which is always a concern when customers are ordering something they’ve only seen on a screen. I’ve had it happen, shit sucks. - Front and back prints were equally sharp. No mismatch, no fading, no weird texture differences. - I did a stretch test. This is something I always check because poorly treated prints crack or split early. Nine times out of ten, that shows up after a few washes and turns into a customer service nightmare. This one held up, thank the holiday gods. Because of that, the initial packaging concern ended up being not as detrimental and more of a personal taste thing. Next step: I’m placing another small order, one shirt and one hoodie, before making any full promotional push or switching fulfillment services completely. No rushing. No assumptions, ya know? I wanted to post this here because at least how discipline for dreamers at least for me, looks like: - Testing before scaling - Separating emotional reactions from actual product performance - Making decisions based on repeatable results, not first impressions - Coming to terms with your own mistakes and making the steps to grow from them. Hope this helps someone who’s building in a similar lane and trying to avoid learning expensive lessons the hard way.

I’m reforming the company again, specifically how I handle merchandise, and this time the focus is on keeping things realistic and sustainable. Lately, I’ve been making sure I’m not oversupplying product when the demand just isn’t there. One of my endorsement partners recently shut down their entire program. Nothing went wrong maliciously and there was no bad blood on either side. The reality was that sales across the board weren’t strong enough to justify keeping it running. They were taking losses from discounts and storefront upkeep, and I wasn’t moving enough volume to make sense of keeping the store open. We ended things clean, with mutual respect, because it was simply a business decision. Honestly, it helped knowing this wasn’t isolated to one artist. It was a widespread issue, and sometimes that perspective matters. Because of that, this became the first year since 2017 that I had to find a new company to print my shirts. Instead of turning it into a why me moment, I focused on figuring out the next move and fixing the problem. Back in the early days of my music career, there was a company called Store Frontier. The concept was simple. You paid to have the design made, and from there they handled the printing, shipping, and fulfillment. There was no inventory to manage and no risk of overstocking something you weren’t sure would sell. That model made sense for where I was at back then. Fast forward to now, Store Frontier is gone, but one of the co owners has launched a new platform called MerchYeah. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been talking with them to see if this could be the right move as I restructure again. We’re starting with a test batch to see how things go. If it works out, I plan on sharing the experience here, including an unboxing once the shirts come in. My hope is that this helps someone else who’s building their fan base the same way I did, by growing with demand instead of sinking money into inventory before it makes sense. It’s not about what happens. It’s about how you handle it, right?

One thing we all focus on is I gotta get the streams!!!! Not true. This will come when you build a connection with your listeners. We are not famous. We cant just expect 400k views right away. Our music is a business we have to build it like a business. One thing i struggle with is having an online presence day to day on all socials. Yes we do need to post videos regularly. But we cant just post our music. No one is invested in our music. So how do we over come this ? Something i will learn. I will start posting about my story. What my music means. Why i wrote it. How i built the song ect. Will that work? Hell if I know , but it'll be a start to switch strategies.

This area is for us to help each other not feel alone in this process! If you are struggling with getting something done and want public accountability and/or advice on how to follow through, drop a comment below!👇