!!! OUR BLOG HAS A NEW HOME !!!!

GRAFFIGHT HAS OFFICIALLY MOVED ITS BLOG TO ITS OWN WEBSITE!

WWW.GRAFFIGHT.COM/BLOG

WHILE THEY’RE WONT BE ANY NEW POSTS HERE, THERE’S PLENTY OF NEW CONTENT, PICTURES, AND STORIES FROM THE BIGGEST EVENTS IN MMA

AND PLEASE VISIT OUR STORE WHERE OUR APPAREL ITEMS ARE NOW ON SALE

THIS BOARD WILL ALWAYS BE AVAILABLE AS AN ARCHIVE TO VIEW OUR PREVIOUS POST 

WE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU AT OUR NEW HOME AND THANK YOU FOR READING

GRAFFIGHT WOULD NOT BE WHERE IT IS TODAY IF NOT FOR LOYAL READERS WHO APPRECIATE THE HELP GRAFFIGHT HAS TRIED TO GIVE TO STARTUPS AND NEW BUSINESS OWNERS NO MATTER WHAT INDUSTRY THEY’RE IN

GOOD LUCK AND THANKS AGAIN

Gary Ibarra

CEO Graffight Apparel

Website Delays and The Holy Grail…A Reliable Printer!

The site has been up for about a week now and the store and the blog are still not up and running, I was told by the person putting the shopping cart together that it would be done today and we would be open for taking orders as soon as the bank had a chance to sync their server with the shopping cart. Having a secure and insured bank or company host your shopping cart is EXTREMELY important especially with the amount of identity theft there is in the world today. If you don’t have a secure company host that for you and someone manages to hack into your site and steal credit card info, you as the host are liable for up to $10,000.00 per false transaction, that’s a lot of money, better to be safe then sorry, invest the time and money to make sure your site’s transactions are safe, most banks offer this service if you have a business bank account with them, most will do it for free and just charge you a few cents per transactions the same way PayPal does, believe me its worth it.

The delays are still major when it comes to the hats, the ideas we’ve come up with for the hats are awesome, its the main item everyone keeps asking about, “when are you going to have these” The gods honest truth is I don’t know, at every turn we’ve been told something we’re asking for can’t be done, which I find hard to believe since I see hats that have the same applique (details) that we are asking for, I know its just a matter of time before we get what we want but the time its taking to get these completed is becoming silly, we will have them though, I’m confident we will.

I was speaking with my boy Mike Romero from BooYaa Fightwear last week about some issues I was having with the delays and with the printer we were going to go with. What happened was we requested a quote for printing 5 sample shirts and eventually 8 total after we viewed the samples and determined  we liked them, we were quoted a price for the printing of the samples but the person we spoke to gave us an incorrect quote, we had agreed on the price she gave us on her initial quote but when she revised the quote it was for almost $1000.00 more! We never approved that price but the printer took it upon themselves to continue because we had approved the first price. When we asked them what happened they said that since we approved the cost initially they decided to continue with the process and now since they started we had to pay them? These are the things you need to be aware of, people trying to cover their mistakes by blaming you, don’t let them. If you feel that your in the right, say so, don’t let these people who foul up blame you for it and then make you pay for it on top of that, after all its your money, don’t make a habit of wasting it on other peoples mistakes.

After telling him this story he suggested I talk to a friend of his, a man named Bob Mannarelli. Bob owns and operates HB Printing in beautiful, sunny, Huntington Beach California, a place I have fond memories of growing up near as a kid. I spoke with Bob and I have to say I liked him immediately, Yoda, (My Nickname for Mike) would never steer me in the wrong direction, he did tell me one thing, Bob is a really smart guy who’s been doing this for a long time, he’s already extremely successful so he only works with people who share the same passion for their work as he does and do things with meaning, with a purpose. When I spoke to him it seemed more like an audition, he wanted to know about my business and what I was trying to do and when I explained to him our mission he decided to take us on as an account, finally! An awesome printer to make our designs the best they can be. I was ecstatic to know he liked us and would be doing our printing, I cant wait to get these done. More to come and thanks for reading everybody,

 

Respect.

The Site Is Officially Up But not Done Yet and A Thank You for a Thank You.

Most of you know that the site went up last Friday and it looks really great, Ted Distel the web designer is an awesome animator and he put together some really cool effects in different places and made the site extremely functional and cool to look at. I hope it keeps people on long enough to buy something. That brings us to the issues we’re still having with the blog and the store pages on the site. Those 2 areas are not coming along as quick as the other sections have, that is partially my fault though. Our art direction and design work as well as the actual drawing of the art has created an issue for us when pricing these shirts so that equalls delays.

The intricacies of the artwork and the fact that they are all drawn by hand makes them a little more expensive then your regular t shirt, now I know why Affliction charges so much for there shirts. To produce something like these high quality shirts with silicone washes and grounded edges accompanied by the high quality artwork makes the shirt cost per unit really high. All of you out there who log onto this site for advice and “how to” information especially in apparel should really listen to this next part, the formula for deciding how much to charge for your apparel items is actually not as difficult as you might think, here it is.

1. Add up all your cost – Art, Shirts, production, shipping, everything you’ve paid to produce the item that your trying to sell.

2. Divide that amount by how many shirts you’ve produced to get a per unit cost (how much each item cost to produce)

3. That number is now your CPU (Cost Per Unit) Take that number and multiply it by 2, the number that comes up is going to be your wholesale price. So if you do the math and the cost per shirt is $5.00 then $10.00 would be your wholesale price. You need to have this price because this is the price your going to use when selling to retailers. This seems like a small amount compared to what you have in mind for a retail price but your average consumer doesn’t buy 1000 shirts at a time like a wholesale buyer does now do they.

4. Multiply your wholesale price by 2 and that is going to be your suggested retail price, so what cost you $5.00, sold for $10.00 and was resold for $20.00, got it?

This formula is standard but only a suggestion, the best thing about these prices is not only can you sell units en mass to retailers but if you have a website or retail outlet you can sell them for the retail price and cut out the middle man, sweet.

If anyone has any questions or needs help with numbers or anything related to these types of problems, please feel free to contact me and I’ll be glad to help you out any way I can, if you don’t already know, you can contact me through the site, www.Graffight.com.

There are times through out this process where I have seriously wanted to just give up, I’ve questioned not only my reasoning for taking on this project but my sanity in general. The economy isn’t exactly fantastic for starting a new business and even worse for retail. There are a million reasons why I should have kept my mouth shut and kept my aspirations in my pocket never to pull them out. I have a wife, 3 children and a mortgage and now thanks to this business, a huge debt, but just when you think your at the point where doubt has seriously crept in and your contemplating the consequences of packing it in, something like this comes to you to let you know not to quit just yet, I’ll let James tell you:

“Gary,
 Thanks for the reply I was inspired by your blog which I found through www.chadlonius.comweb site. Chad is doing art work for me.  I spent hours upon hours looking up tshirt businesses,from software to screenprinting and it wasn’t until I found your web site that it moved me to take action,action I should have done two years ago when the idea came to me. Reading your blog was for the little guy trying to carve a niche in this world and finally I found someone just like me no real experience,but a big dream.
 So after reading your blog this is what I did, I created a web site through volusion called www.bruddahs.comstill in the testing phase,ressurrected my blog http://jamestia.wordpress.com/that I’ve had for a while,but really did nothing with and I created a tshirt for a up and coming fighter at American Top Team. I believe when we are ready God will send help or the teacher will appear to teach. You da man!
 I have a fighter by the name of kiko france he is the head instructor at american top team missouri and through your blog I hooked up with jason at lgsportsmarketing and we are plannig something for the future,but not only that they are flying kiko up to arizona to bring on board their team if all works out. I tell you through your blog it gave me the faith to take action and just do it. I appreciate your blog and the action you took it moved me to where I am now. Some people are already banking I won’t last,but at least I’m doing it.
 James Ti’a”

My father told me once a long time ago something that has had profound effect on my life ever since, “Regret is simply explained, have regret for things that you’ve done, but never for things that you haven’t. If you do, its no ones fault but your own” He was right about that James, and that’s the same advice I’ve tried to convey to people in this blog. I’m glad that’s what you’ve taken away from these posts, even if I forget myself sometimes. Thank you for reminding me and good luck.

Respect,

3 Days Till Launch and Everything Is Out Of Control

Well we’ve got 3 days not counting today to make sure we’re completely ready to launch this baby and I’m scared out of my mind. My “What If” gland has been working overtime since last week with the impending doom, I mean launch nearing ever closer. We still have 1000 things to do before Friday and its becoming increasingly difficult to keep my regular job and take care of everything for this project. We still need to put the finishing touches on the website, we have no more sample shirts, and we are most likely going to start the site with ZERO inventory. That was not exactly the plan but things just don’t always turn out the way you want. 

We sent over the shirts for Andria Caplan’s bout this weekend, she’s going to be wearing our signature Graffight logo t shirt into the ring as well as all her corner people. We had planned to have our new round of items completed by this week, after going over all the variables we were pretty sure everything would be done by now but of course since this venture is never easy, we are now going to be delayed till next week. I guess it could be worse, we could have had no shirts to send her but its very important to stick to your word, plus I already paid her. We had to beg borrow and steal to make sure Andria had the few shirts we gave her for her fight but it turned out ok, the shirt she should be wearing into the ring is a little big for her but it will get the point across. I really hope all her hard work and sacrifice by her and her family pays off after Saturday. 

So I spent this whole morning talking with my good friend Mike Romero from BooYaa Fight Wear, I called to tell him I wouldn’t be able to make it this weekend to the King of the Cage event Saturday but I would try and make the next one, he understood and gave me a huge amount of advice about how to go about everything this week. Making sure everything is set up, making sure the site is in good order before it goes up, making sure I had enough time to get it all done. He also gave me some solid advice on the printing and how I should get it done and not lose my shirt in the process. After we spoke I turned my attention to making sure that Mike’s advice didn’t go to waste.

I called Steve Fulgham, I haven’t talked about Steve on here previously but I did and you didn’t know it. Steve is one half of the team that put on the IMMAE, he was the organizer of the whole event, he also is the equivalent to a consultant, he puts people in touch with other people to get whatever they need done in a business situation. If you need a printer, he has one for you, if you need blank t shirts, he can find you somebody who has them. He helped a lot of people that were exhibiting during the trade show that didn’t have everything they needed before the event opened to make sure they looked professional and that they had enough product to try and recoup some of their expenses from the show. He put me in touch with a printer and he’s working on getting me some prices right now. I just hope we get some prices that are descent. More to come.

Respect.

Launch Day Is Approaching

As prepared as I’ve tried to be for the the launch of the label and the website there just isn’t enough hours in the day to make sure you cover every base, try as you may to ensure your ready there will always be something unforeseen that pops up, I just hope whatever it is we’re ready for it. Our website launch is scheduled for August 15th so we have a laundry list of things we need to have in to the guy who’s creating the shopping cart, the prices, the pictures of the products, the return policy, the shipping options and charges, you never really realize how much stuff is involved when creating something like this until your forced to. 

I been getting some good responses from people about the article in MMA Payout.com that I wrote, I really just hoped people would read it and take something away from it if they were interested in having a booth at the next trade show. Its a tough business out there, people make a living preying on people who don’t have experience in whatever field they enter, if I can give some advice that saves a start up like us some money then I’m all for it. Thank you again to Robert Joyner and MMA Payout.com for giving me the opportunity to provide some helpful info to people and businesses around MMA. 

Today is a short post because I’m crazy busy, but I will be checking in periodically and adding little items as they happen.

Thanks for reading everybody,

Respect.

Our New Sponsored Fighter, An Article By Me in MMA Payout.com, And We Have A Winner and A New Contest

 Graffight has been in business for less than a year, we’ve come along way in that time with a lot of help from our friends but there are things that we still have yet to experience. While those things are still many, there are things that I have encountered along the way that I’ve really enjoyed. Those are the times when the effort you’ve put forth to help further yourself puts you in a  position to help someone else. What I’m talking about is sponsorships. Sponsoring athletes in this business is a great way to get your brand name out to a broader audience but when you can do that while helping someone to realize their dreams of becoming a professional athlete, well that makes it even more rewarding.

Andria Caplan is an up and coming fighter out of the fighting city of Philadelphia, PA and Graffight is proud to have her as one of our sponsored fighters. Andria is a wife and mother but still finds the energy to train several times a day nearly 7 days a week, someone with this kind of tenacity and energy level is destined to become a champion and if Graffight can help to make that happen, then we are privileged to be a part of her journey. Andrias first professional fight is August 16Th, we wish her all the luck in the world. Check out the sponsorship announcement on Five Ounces Of Pain.com and after the fight we’ll post the results.

Our good friend Robert Joyner of MMA Payout.com contacted me last week before I left for the IMMAE, he told me he heard that I would be attending and would I be interested in writing a piece on the event. I owe Robert a lot so I told him of course I would. The article focused on the goings on of the event and the dynamic between the different exhibiting companies, similar to my blog post Monday, check it out, its called “An Inside Look At IMMAE”.

And we have a winner in our “Pick a Design Contest” Jeff and his co-workers, you all win a shirt courtesy of Graffight. Those of you who didn’t win, well, we have another design we need your help with. Walking through the Expo this weekend there was definitely a pattern in terms of design themes, skulls, dragons, swords and of course the Chain Link Fence Background shirts. We have a design currently that is similar to this theme, it has the chainlinkfence background but with a more artistic twist to it.

Give us your opinion on weather we should keep it or not and we’ll pick another winner in the next few days. Keep an eye out for our launch August 15th, and thanks everyone for reading,

Respect.

IMMAE 08 Pics and The Pro’s and Con’s of Exhibiting

The International Mixed Martial Arts Expo this past weekend was another step in the learning process anyone wanting to be involved in the business of MMA needs to take. Trade shows in general are arenas set up specifically for people to explore networking possibilities, see what the competition has to offer, and if your a fan like me, get to meet and talk to some of your favorite MMA Celebrities. The expos was held at the long Beach Convention Center in Long beach California for its inaugural event and it did not disappoint. The venue was really cool, for those of you who live in the area and have been to the convention center know, the whole are is one big party! I arrived at the show on Friday afternoon which was designated for industry buyers only and for most people to continue the set up of their booths, I figured this would be a good day to go to check things out without the huge crowds that were sure to attend. I was also going to meet a for the first time in person a man who’s turned out to be a really great and knowledgeable friend, Mike Romero from BooYaa Fightwear. You may remember I wrote previously about Mike and the email he sent me offering his help. I had a few questions that I was hoping to get some advice from him on, he’s been in business for 10 years so there isn’t much he doesn’t know or many people he hasn’t met. We were talking just as a camera crew walked up and asked us if they could interview us, I was like Uhhhhhh, ok:

That is Mike on the left, and on the right is another great well of information, Matt Antrim, President of BloodFist Battle Gear, Matt had a lot of great advice to impart as well, and I cant stress enough, how important it is to have people you can go to for advice who already have experience in whatever business you decide to enter is, that advice translates to money saved almost always. Here also is another pic of me and Mike in the Cage

As I walked around I couldn’t believe how much people were able to recognize Graffight from our shirts and it really hit home , all the networking we’ve done and all the help we’ve gotten from other people already in the business was actually turning into brand recognition, it was crazy, and its really crazy when someone stops you and says “Are you from Graffight? I read your blog, you guys really give me hope that I can do the same thing as you, you inspired us to start our business”  rewarding doesn’t begin to describe the feeling. 

The expo all in all was really cool, Steve Fulgham and the guys who put the expo on did a really great job and from what I gathered from him today, everything went smoothly, or as smoothly as an event like that could have. Everyone there had a really great time, the chance to meet their favorite athlete and get a look at some cool new products is always a good thing. Here’s a few pics:

As you can see this was a well attended event, Los Angeles and Las Vegas have become the mecca’s of MMA so the idea to have the expo in that area almost guaranteed that there would be no shortage of star power, you can see the TapouT guys along with Jens Pulver, Michael Bisping representing Ecko, Urijah Faber was signing for Fight Magazine, and my favorite pic of the whole weekend, Tm Sylvia and Sean Sherk representing Warrior Wear, this was a classic picture. 

Saturday when I showed up for day 2, I stopped by the BooYaa booth to say hello to Mike and to gather some content for an article I’m writing for Robert Joyner and MMA Payout. Mike had a cage set up in front of his booth where they were holding seminars with professional fighters who were giving tips to people on their striking and their ground game, but as i walked over it was surprisingly empty, I asked him what was going on and he informed me that the ring girl competition was about to begin, OK, oh, and one other thing he forgot to mention, I would be judging the contest along with Doug Anderson from the Discovery Channels Martial Arts Show “Fight Quest” and one of the Philadelphia Eagles Cheerleaders, these are the perks:

I

There are plenty of pictures of the girls who won the contest at FightZoo.com, check them out, you wont be disappointed.

After the place was winding down we took a few more pics with Mike and thanked him for all he’d done for us and how much we appreciated all the advice, we promised to talk soon and then we were done for the night. 

Trade shows are great opportunities for networking, meeting people within your chosen industry is paramount, sharing ideas and exploring co-branding opportunities, or meeting buyers, they are a vital part of any retail business, but you need to be realistic about what you can expect for your money. Exhibiting at a trade show is not cheap, booths usually run in the thousands and you cant really guarantee that you’ll make that money back in sales especially with all the competition. Walking around the areas where the booths were was like a micro-chasm of the industry, the haves and have not’s. Where one side of the floor would have hundreds of people the others would be completely baron, but its hard to know what your up against as an exhibitor until you’ve experienced it for yourself. The best advice I can give is to do what I did, attend one first, see what makes some booths more popular than others, make sure you can fill an entire booth with your products and be realistic in your expectations and you wont be disappointed later.

Full On Into Production, Some Help From A Pro

My partner had a meeting with the printer Monday morning to go over the size and design placement on the shirts once their printed, this is crucial if your doing something like shirt design. If you have an idea of what you want the designs to look like you shouldn’t settle for something that looks kinda like what you had in mind or sorta looks similar to what you were thinking, keep trying till you get it right, that way if it doesn’t work out you wont have anyone to blame but yourself, if you settle for something that wasn’t 100% what you wanted, your going to blame the people who convinced you to accept it and you’ll need to go back to the drawing board. Point is, get it right the first time and you wont have to go back and do it again. Check this out, which one do you like better?

Let me know your opinion since your the ones who are going to be buying them and I’ll pick someone at random and send them a shirt like I did with OJ, Check him out:

Yesterday I received a call from David Gensler at The KDU, (Keystone Design Union) The KDU is a concept created by David, one that’s similar to a labor union but there are no dues or fees to be paid, just an internal network of kindred spirits I guess you could say. People in all fields of design and art who look out for each other and help eachother out like a fraternal organization. Its an awesome concept when you think about it, a group of artists who get together on a project and lend their expertise to it to ensure mutual benefit and the best possible design work of course. I really want to be involved with them, it kind of goes to our whole idea of what we’re trying to do here, take the more mainstream design ideas and bring them into the world of MMA, receiving help from David and the KDU will definitely go a long way to accomplishing that goal. You can find all kinds of information on David and The KDU on the web, he’s a really big name in the business, I didn’t realize it until I googled his name, theres interviews, YouTube videos, articles, all on him and the KDU, check them out if you get a chance.

Knowing When To Listen To Your Gut and Something Really Cool Coming Up

This idea started over a year ago and through my increasing involvement in the world of MMA I’ve had the  great pleasure of meeting a lot of different people in all kinds of different aspects of the business, management, marketing, promotions, the avenues to get involved in the worlds fastest growing sport are many, somepeople are nice because they want to be but you start to realize, some are nice because they have to be. Judging character is unfortunately a gut instinct but it is important. Its important to remember who is who in a business relationship, who’s the the customer and who’s the salesman, sometimes its very easy have that line skewed and thats when bad things happen. This doesn’t mean you cant be friends with the guy who’s trying to sell you, some of the best relationships I have made along this journey have been with people trying to make Graffight a customer of theirs. The important point is, its your money, your budget, how you spend that money is ultimately up to you, make sure you spend it wisely and that you know your going to see a return on your investment.

I was on my way home last Thursday when I received a phone call from Jason at LG, he had an opportunity for me that he thought might be of interest, a full page add in TapouT Magazine. Jason has a friend there who calls him in the event that an advertiser bails out at the last minute, when that happens the opportunity to secure an ad in the magazine becomes less expensive due to the deadlines of the magazine. Trying to find someone last minute who can create a whole page ad complete with text, pictures and graphic design effects is not exactly easy in a 24 hour window, its a good thing my partner is a graphic designer, we were able to come up with an ad in the time frame we were given, L G even alowed us to use Jamie Varner’s picture in the ad. It came out pretty cool, you can check it out August 15th when it comes out if you have a subscription, I think its going to go on newsstands towards the end of August. Thank you again to Jason and everyone at L G Sports Marketing for all their help and Jason especially, he really wants us to succeed and we appreciate it.

Thanks for reading everyone, keep reading, I’ll be at the International Mixed Martial Arts Expo this weekend so I’ll have a lot of pics next week.

More Thank You’s For Media Coverage and A Crisis Avoided

These last few days have been really busy, we’re trying to make sure we don’t have anymore issues with the printing process which means we’re having to be more hands on with it, that takes time but its worth the effort to make sure you get your product to look the way you envisioned it in the first place. Samples are an absolutely necessary expense, you need to see a finished product so you can tweak the little things that work and remove the ones that don’t, a lesson learned from our last production mistake. If your working with a printer or manufacturer and they tell you that they either wont give you a sample or can only do 1, my suggestion is find someone else who will. If you believe in your ability as a manufacturer or a printer why wouldn’t you want to provide a sample? Most places who believe in there work will not only provide you samples but will also do them for you for free or at an inexpensive rate in order to secure you as a client. We got that finally from our new screen printer Pacific Splash in Los Angeles and our hat manufacturer Captive 8 West in San Diego.

I received an email from a very good friend Jason Genet from LG Sports Marketing yesterday, Jason and I are really getting to the point where we are talking to each other in a personal level as opposed to the way we started which was all business. He’s an extremely knowledgable person and his advice has been invaluable to me in the past and he always seems to make me see things that I had neglected before and when he brings them up its like a light bulb goes off above my head. I find myself saying the same thing to him over and over, “Why didn’t I see that” or “Why didn’t I think of that?” Finding someone or making friends with people who are in the business your trying to become involved in is extremely important, the knowledge you receive from those people who have been there done that can save you money, prepare you for hazards, prevent you from legal action, and give you insight into any intricate details you should know about ahead of time in a certain situation. Jason probably saved me some major headaches and a lot of money with a suggestion he gave me yesterday, he also gave me some advice that made total sense regarding an issue with our sponsoring. Both pieces of advise had me saying my usual “Why didn’t I think of that?”. Thank you Jason, your advice and willingness to help us avoid the pitfalls that befall too many start up companies, it has proved over and over to be a life saver.

Our good friend Robert Joyner at MMA Payout.com recently did a recap congratulating us on our first win as a sponsor, we always appreciate the tabs Robert keeps on us, he is definitely another reason why we have progressed so far in such a short period of time, we are extremely indebted to him and have really made an effort to show the public that his backing of us was a good decision. We also had a small write up about us done on a site called GymTops.com, they are a site that does reviews and showcases of MMA based apparel, the guy who runs the site Jay Tillery is a pretty nice guy too.

Thanks for reading everybody,

Respect.