SmallBizResource Blog -- Women in Business

Wednesday's Woman: Tees For Change Founder Andreea Ayers

Posted by Gayle Kesten Wednesday, Mar 4, 2009, 02:47 PM ET

Most people thought Andreea Ayers was out of her mind when she wanted to deliver her baby at home. And from that criticism, an idea for a business was born.

Ayers, who moved to New York from Romania when she was 12, relocated to Boulder, Colo., two years ago when her husband began grad school there. A Cornell graduate, Ayers' career had been in marketing, including positions at The Green Guide (later bought by National Geographic) and Ideal Bite, which are both eco-friendly, green Web sites that provide information about how to live a healthier lifestyle. Finding a new job in the Centennial State proved difficult for Ayers, who was already far along in her pregnancy. "Then, slowly, as my pregnancy was progressing, I realized I wanted to start a t-shirt company because of all the negative reactions I was receiving from everybody regarding the home birth," she says. "In a way it's a blessing I didn't get a job. If I would have gotten a job, I never would have started the company."

Ayers' company, Tees For Change, sells eco-friendly shirts and baby clothes emblazoned with positive phrases, like "dream big" and "live mindfully." And mindful of giving back to the world, Ayers has a tree planted for every sale she makes. That means a lot of trees: In the couple of years Ayers has been in businesses, Tees For Change's revenue has grown 400-plus percent, and the number of retailers (mainly spas, resorts, and yoga studios) that carry her wear has soared from 20 to 400. Ayers' Website accounts for 15 percent of her sales, and she relies a lot on email marketing to keep the word out about her company.

Ayers also has set up a second site, Ecopreneur Avenue, where she blogs about what it's like to be both a eco-entrepreneur and a mom-entrepreneur. Next on her agenda: figuring out what she can outsource so she can spend more time on growing her business, and delivering Baby No. 2. In May. At home.

SBR: Why sell t-shirts and not, say, design bumper stickers or write a book?
AA: I thought I could express myself more through t-shirts. I wasn't a big fashion person before. I had never done retail or knew anything about the fashion industry, but the t-shirt idea stuck with me, and I got really excited about it.

SBR: How did you go forward with your idea?
AA: I didn't have any experience in retail, but I knew if I did the research, I could make it work. It also allowed me to combine the eco-friendly aspects I was interested in with positive thinking and marketing. I researched other companies, the printers, where I could source my t-shirts from -- everything came together, and I knew I could make it work.

SBR: How did you set up your Web site?
AA: Initially I did my own site. I had a little bit of experience designing Web sites from when I was doing marketing freelance work, and my sister is a graphic designer, so she was able to design a logo for me. But after eight months I outgrew the site. Then I hired someone who was able to give me a system that was easier to use, faster with reports, and had shopping carts.

SBR: Where did you go for your t-shirt material?
AA: One of most important things I wanted was to use t-shirts that were made in the United States, but it was really difficult to find organic cotton or bamboo in different styles and colors. Eventually I did a mix of tees that were made in the U.S. and some that were made overseas. I wanted to do maternity, too, but I couldn't find a manufacturer that did maternity tops in organic cotton.

SBR: What did your very first t-shirt say?
AA: "Be courageous." I wore it throughout my pregnancy. The three others I started with were "seek balance," "choose happiness" -- which happens to be the best-selling one in stores today -- and "stay strong." I came up with those sayings, and once I started to get customers and visitors to my Web site, I held contests for people to submit phrases. Some of the t-shirt phrases that came after that came from people's submissions.

SBR: Which is your favorite?
AA: It depends. Maybe "today matters," and that was submitted by a customer.

SBR: What were your start-up costs?
AA: They were around $700 or $800. I printed the four different t-shirts and got six of each size just to see how they'd do. They sold out within a month or two, and I had to do another printing. That's when I knew I had a good idea. I financed the growth through credit cards. From the beginning I always had enough money from sales to put into growing the company, and buying and printing the t-shirts. It was all on the credit card, but I was always able to pay it off each month.

SBR: How did you get the word out about your business?
AA: When I first started, my main focus was targeting yoga studios. So I made a list of as many studios as I could find on the Internet and in yoga magazines. I contacted all of them with a mass email, and then personalized email as well. I actually got a good response and some orders. I got an email provider, designed the template, wrote all the text, and sent it all out. I send out monthly newsletters to both customers who purchase from the retail Web site and also to the wholesalers that signed up for an account with Tees For Change.

SBR: Tell me about the tree-planting initiative.
AA: When I started the company, I wanted to do something where I could also give back. One of the ideas I had was to partner with an organization that would plant a tree for every t-shirt I sold. I found a few organizations, and Trees For the Future was the one I started working with about seven or eight months ago. Close to 10,000 trees have been planted, mostly in South America and some in Africa. Ten cents from every t-shirt sale pays for a tree.

SBR: Do you have any help running our business?
AA: Sometimes I have help with packing and shipping. Right now everything is stored at my warehouse [at home], but I'm in the process of switching to a fulfillment house so they can do all the storage, packing, and shipping. That way I can focus on the marketing, sales, and customer aspects of the business. I also have four part-time, commission-based salespeople who focus mostly on the spa and resort industry. They're in Florida, California, Arizona, and Hawaii.

SBR: How did you find them?
AA: Through putting up ads, or sometimes I find out who other companies are using that sell products similar to mine and contact [those salespeople] to see if they want to take on a common account. Sometimes salespeople contact me after discovering my Web site. [When I've posted ads,] the one that actually has worked the best for me is a Web site called greatrep.com. I took out an ad in their newsletters that goes out to sales reps. I also worked with another one called mywares.com.

SBR: Describe your typical day.
AA: That really depends. Some days revolve around the baby's schedule, but it's definitely a nonstop thing. Whenever I'm not with the baby or running errands or doing family things, I'm working. Sometimes it's midnight, and I'll still be working. Other times I say, "OK, it's 5 o'clock, and I've done enough for today." I'm always trying to find a balance between family and work, since the office is in my home. I'm getting better at drawing the line.

SBR: What is the hardest part about running your own business?
AA: Not having a sounding board. I wish I had somebody else to bounce ideas off of or to get someone else's input. Maybe there's something I might not have thought about or a different marketing strategy I might not have tried before.

SBR: Is the recession impacting your business?
AA: I'm finding a little bit of an impact. I know some [smaller customers] are saying they want to hold off and don't place orders as large, but at the same time I have a lot more customers that have larger retail spaces and are placing large orders. So that's kind of balancing things out.

SBR: In addition to email, how else do you market your business?
AA: I've done some trade shows, both consumer and retail, that have brought in some new customers. I plan to do a lot more of those next year. The other thing I've been focusing on is PR. I did all the PR myself in the first year, then I hired a company for a few months, but that didn't work out too well. So now I'm back to doing it. I'm finding that really interesting and am trying to learn as much as I can. I subscribe to a lot of PR newsletters. I look at editorial calendars to see what [publications are] working on and make a list of the publications where I'd love to see the t-shirts featured. Then I figure out which angle to use and which reporter or editor to contact. I starting out just sending out as many press releases as I could, but I'm finding it more beneficial to target a smaller number of publications and blogs.

SBR: What about social networking?
AA: I have a Facebook group for Tees For Change, and a Twitter and MySpace account. I do use those occasionally, although I haven't quite figured out how to use them for increasing sales or traffic to the Web site. It's something I need to learn more about.

SBR: You also started a Web site called Ecopreneur Avenue. How did that come about?
AA: The reason I started that was because I was getting a lot of email from people asking for business advice. I was always really happy when someone thought I was an expert. People were asking about starting their own clothing line, about starting an eco-friendly business, about planting trees, about email programs I'm using. They'd say, "I'm thinking of starting a t-shirt business. How did you find the manufacturer? How do you get organic cotton t-shirts?" I figured it would be a great way to share what I've learned and profile other entrepreneurs who I could learn from as well.

SBR: What kind of advice do you give to other start-ups?
AA: You have to be focused and clearly define your goals. I have a list, but it's more like the top 10 spas I'd like the t-shirts to be sold in, or the top 20 blogs and magazines I want the t-shirts to appear.

SBR: What is your must-have technology?
AA: I've been thinking about getting a BlackBerry, but I know if I do I'll always be using it and working. I'm tempted but hesitant. I find the Internet most valuable, and I do things like set up Google Alerts on eco-fashion or a competitor or someone who I really admire and want to see what they're up to. I also like reading people's blogs and those of small business owners to see what's working for them and what's not.

SBR: Whose blogs do you regularly read?
AA: Buzz Marketing, the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, and Chris Brogan. I also read the Savor The Success women who blog -- there's a lot of good information there as well.

SBR: How do you manage your finances?
AA: I use QuickBooks. The first year I started the company I had everything in an Excel spreadsheet, but once things grew and more orders starting coming in, that became tough to manage. I couldn't really get any kind of reporting from Excel. I taught myself how to use QuickBooks and do monthly reports to see where everything stands. All the invoicing is done through QuickBooks, as well. I feel I'm at a point where I need to hire someone to do it and answer phones as well. I'm thinking about going the virtual assistant route. Sometimes I'm not here and the phone rings, and I feel like I should always have somebody answering the phone.

SBR: How do you monitor your Web site traffic?
AA: Mostly Google Analytics. My shopping cart also gives me some light reporting, like how many products sold, which ones they were, and what traffic came to the Web site. I learned how to use all in previous jobs where there was no one else to do it except for me.

SBR: What's next?
AA: Definitely going the fulfillment house route and learning which things make sense to hire other people to do so I can focus on more PR and growing the company -- trying to figure out where my sales are coming from and how to get more.

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Recent Wednesday's Woman articles:

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• Contest For Moms In Business
  
• Smart Networking's Liz Lynch
  
• Mean Girls At Work
  
• Angela Jia Kim Savors Her Success
  
• Archives

The Wednesday's Woman series is written for today's community of hard-working, small-business women, featuring profiles, industry trends, research, work/life balance issues and other topics of interest.

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