A friend and I were having lunch, looking at the menu. At the top of one page, it said:
RIBE / FISH
I read it out loud as one word: “Ribefish.”
My friend raised an eyebrow.
“Speaking of which, I saw you posted something the other day. What exactly is going on with this brand of yours?”
I explained that, for now, I’m testing the idea with a print-on-demand model. I want to see what people respond to, what they actually buy, and whether this thing has legs.
Or fins.
If it does, the next step is to keep my own inventory and use preprinted heat transfers that I can press onto garments as orders come in.
“And what’s your vision for the brand?”
“My vision?”
Fair question. Ribafish was started by a 54-year-old man, old enough — and probably realistic enough — not to spend much time imagining myself making millions selling T-shirts, hoodies, and caps.
But I’ll be very happy when — not if — Ribafish brings in roughly what I make today selling creative services.
So I’m going the Lean Startup route: start with a minimum viable product, get it in front of real customers as early as possible, then build, measure, and learn.
In less startup-y language: make something good enough to sell, see what happens, learn from real people and real numbers, improve what works, change what doesn’t, and pivot when there’s a good reason to. Then do it again.
For this test phase, I chose a T-shirt I genuinely like wearing myself. It’s soft, light, comfortable, and has that nice feel where the shirt moves with you. Which is pretty much what I want from a T-shirt.
I also deliberately kept the color palette small. Most Ribafish shirts currently come in Black Heather (90% Airlume combed and ring-spun cotton, 10% polyester) and Solid White Blend, made from 100% Airlume combed and ring-spun cotton. For MAKE EMPATHY GREAT AGAIN, I added Red, also in 100% Airlume combed and ring-spun cotton.
But yes, I do have a vision. Eventually, I’d like Ribafish to make its own products in partnership with a manufacturer whose labor and environmental practices I can genuinely stand behind.
I want to make things people are happy to buy. Or, even better, things they’re happy to buy for somebody else.
Things people enjoy wearing because they help them say something about themselves without having to make a speech about it.
A small joke. A thought. A slightly questionable observation. A little signal to the rest of the world.
I see Ribafish tees as a way of expressing yourself through characters, one-liners, jokes, observations, and little statements rather than designs that need to shout for attention.
Fish work pretty well for that: freedom, adaptability, movement. And a little mischief.
People are always telling you to go with the flow. Ribafish doesn’t swim with the current.
Ribafish is for the doers and the dreamers, the losers and the winners, the good guys and the sinners.
What about colors? Will there be more?
Of course. In the next phase, when I have my own inventory and can press the designs myself as orders come in.
Until then, I’ll keep developing products, adding designs and slogans, and doing the least glamorous but probably most useful part of the whole process.
Testing.
Then testing some more.
Somewhere down the road, I can also imagine Ribafish becoming more than a one-man operation.
Not some giant corporation with seventeen vice presidents of strategic fish development. Just a small team.
People coming up with new taglines and designs. People making content and ads. People bringing ideas into the brand that I would never have come up with on my own.
And maybe I’ll just write the occasional blog post. I could live with that.
There’s one other part of the vision: I’d like Ribafish to give something back and set aside part of what the brand earns for a cause I genuinely believe in — one I already support in a small way from time to time.
Nothing world-changing. At least not overnight.
Just trying to make the world a little better.
One T-shirt at a time.