Today we’d like to introduce you to Devin Duncan.
Devin, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Hi! My name is Devin Kelvont Duncan, or as some of you may know me, @vsnairedev. I am a teen entrepreneur who 100% independently runs the clothing brand @goatteezapparel. I’m a small-town native of Senatobia, Mississippi. Growing up in a small town greatly played a role in my eagerness to innovate. Though I’ve faced many challenges by simply just being a black male in Mississippi, I’ve never let any of those obstacles defeat me, but instead, I’ve used them as motivation to prosper. My goal in life has always been to equate something that would ensure generational wealth. As a child, I always knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but I was never really sure what business venture I would take on. I have always found myself creating some type of way to make my own income, even throughout my childhood. I think that it’s pretty safe to say that I’ve tried almost everything.
In 2017, going into my freshman year of high school I created a YouTube channel (Duncan GV Ent). My YouTube channel featured various videos such as lyrics, listicle,s and vlog videos. When I created this channel, I had no intention of making any monetary income from it. However, in 2018, by the age of 14, I was able to earn approximately $10k+ from YouTube revenue and over 100M+ views cumulatively across my channel. During this time, realizing that the income that I was earning from YouTube would possibly not be a permanent resource, I made the decision to invest in my own clothing brand. Looking back, I realize that I couldn’t have made a smarter decision as a 14-year-old during that time. Though turning my YouTube revenue into a business investment was an incredibly smart thing to do, there were many obstacles that I faced at the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey. I didn’t quite understand what all went into running a business, especially a clothing brand. In fact, I went into my brand completely blind to what was to come. I had absolutely no clue of where to even start. Things were also very overwhelming during this time in my life, as I was at the start of my high school career trying to manage my social life, extracurricular activities, and my newfound business. Managing all of this was a challenge, but I continuously had to remind myself that I had a vision that I was destined to bring to fruition and that is what led my eagerness to do whatever it took to work towards my dream.
I share all of this to show you all that entrepreneurship is a journey. As a young entrepreneur, I made just about every mistake possible. It took me years to get to where I am now, and there is still a long way to go. I’ve had many ups and downs throughout my entrepreneurship journey and each day still remains a learning process.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
When developing Goat Teez Apparel I didn’t do much research about clothing brand development because I was so eager to get started. In hopes to get my business off the ground, I impulsively purchased a $75 logo from the first graphic designer I could find, along with heat press machine equipment and hundreds of blank tees. I then began to make shirts from my home but the quality wasn’t what I had envisioned for my clothing brand. I was devastated, here I was with all of these blank tees and equipment not knowing what I’d do next. In an attempt to earn some of my money back, I began to take on custom orders and gigs such as creating shirts for family reunions, graduations, and birthdays. I was happy to make some of my money back from this method but having a custom shirt brand was not a part of my plan. I wanted my own clothing brand.
I one day saw an ad on television one day about this printing provider called Custom Ink. Custom Ink is a US-based online retail company that makes custom clothing such as T-shirts and sweatshirts. At first,, I didn’t think much of the advertisement because here I was basically doing the same thing as Custom Ink, just on a much smaller scale. However later on I decided to visit their website and I saw that this was a major company that prints clothing at high quality and that all I had to do was upload my logo. This made me very ecstatic to know that I could possibly now be on the right track to getting my clothing brand started. Going back into my YouTube savings I decided to give Custom Ink a shot. I then invested the remainder of the money that I had saved to purchase tees from Custom Ink that featured my brand’s logo, just shortly after discovering the printing provider. As smooth sailing as this sounds, there are so many things that I later discovered were wrong with this method. For starters, I had no customer opinion before spending thousands on stock, as a business owner it is always important to test out products and see how customers may react before actually ordering inventory. Another problem I faced was that all of my tees had Custom Ink’s branding on the label inside the tees and at times it felt as if my brand didn’t even belong to me. Another major problem I had was that I simply had too much inventory as a startup company.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about GoatTeez Apparel Inc?
We are a streetwear clothing brand that serves people of all ages, ethnicity & cultures. We have reached countries worldwide and have about 200+ brand ambassadors across the nation.
Any big plans?
I plan to open stores across the nation within my clothing brand. I have just recently released my first e-book!
Pricing:
- Affordable $10-50
Contact Info:
- Website: goatteez.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vsnairedev/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/goatteezapparel/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/goatteez
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUvJhECX9d3fKq_ss6Whejg
