5 T Shirt Designer Business Success Stories [2024]

Updated: November 19th, 2023
Become A Tee Shirt Designer

Have you always had a passion for fashion and creativity? Well, then the field of tee shirt design could be the perfect opportunity for you!

As a tee shirt designer, you would be responsible for fitting model garments, ensuring size uniformity, and using your design and aesthetic skills to create unique and eye-catching tee shirts that will captivate your customers’ attention.

With this exciting career, you’ll have the chance to let your creativity run wild and make a lasting impact on the fashion industry.

Here are some real life success stories of starting a tee shirt designer:

1. Designious ($180K/year)

Alex Dumitru, along with his colleagues Viorel Popescu and Ciprian Dragut, started Designious as a side project in 2008. They initially created a website to publish the unused designs from their design studio, and it quickly gained traction, making a few hundred dollars in the first month. Since then, Designious has grown into a profitable business, generating around $12-13k per month, and they are now expanding their product offerings and opening up the platform to other designers.

How much they make: $180K/year
Current team size: 2

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Generating $15K/Month In Extra Income With A Graphic Design Library

Designious co-founder Alex Dumitru shares how the graphic design library generates $12-13k in monthly revenue by creating digital products that appeal to print-on-demand entrepreneurs and graphic designers, while also offering a flat-rate membership and useful resources that solve little problems.

About
Alexandru started Designious about 16 years ago
Revenue
Alexandru grew the business to $15K/month
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2. Goober Prints ($79.2K/year)

How much they make: $79.2K/year
Current team size:

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$80,000 in Etsy Sales: How to Grow from Here? [Side Hustle Coaching]

This Etsy seller increased sales from $10k to $80k in just one year by selling 4000 customized garments.

About
They started Goober Prints about 5 years ago
Revenue
They grew the business to $6.6K/month
Read by 789 founders

So... can you actually make money with a tee shirt designer?

Of course. There are millions to be made in this industry.

But how?

  1. Research real, profitable businesses and see exactly how much money they make.
  2. Study exactly what works, and what doesn’t.
  3. Take action, because now you have the roadmap.

Join Starter Story and build your next big thing:

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3. Ratchet Clothing ($1.21M/year)

How much they make: $1.21M/year
Current team size:

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How To Go Viral with Dhillan @ Ratchet Clothing Company

Dhillan Bhardwaj dropped out of college to start Ratchet Clothing, a budget-friendly handmade clothing brand which has organically grown to multiple stores across England and has been worn by big named celebrities such as Miley Cyrus and Rihanna.

About
They started Ratchet Clothing about 12 years ago
Revenue
They grew the business to $101K/month
Read by 761 founders