Our Story

(From one of our co-founder's eye)

Growing up, I had never in my wildest dreams imagined that I would be an entrepreneur. Throughout my employment life, my deep interest was in charity work. I even equipped myself with a Masters degree in Development Studies to fit in that role. With this, I had planned that on leaving employment, I would join the NGO sector in ‘saving the world’. But when I finally came out of employment things didn’t work as I anticipated.

I started off with supplying promotional materials to corporate organizations. But it was like the gods were against me. The high rate of rejected, delayed, or substandard goods proved too much a fire to handle. Two turbulent years down the line, the curtain fell, leaving my savings depleted and a pile of unsold stock. But it was like I had attained a practical MBA, and the business bug had bitten me. So out of this not so successful venture, I got rethinking.

From this, Create A Tee was conceived. This time, I took time thinking through and planning the business, understanding the local market, learning global trends and borrowing best practices from other international enterprises. The final product was a tech-driven e-commerce company offering print on demand services on garments like t-shirt, hoodies, tote bags, sweatshirt, and polo shirts. Out of the products I had interacted with I chose to work with wearable garments, owing to their versatility and because this is the sector I identified most gaps in. With this idea finally in place, though coupled with a negative bank account, all I had to do was to sell one of my kidneys (almost) to actualize it.

One of Henry Ford’s rather infamous quote is "You can have it any colour as long as its black’. However today one size fits all does not fit all. Consumers know what they want, are more demanding and want it at the touch of instant gratification. To respond to this, Create A Tee was born to serve customers needs for variety, personalization and self expression. To us a t-shirt (or other garments) is not just pieces of clothe sewn together. It is a tool to express who you are, what you stand for and what you are passionate about. We have been in business for 3 years now and are growing in the process, serving retail customers, corporates as well as independent resellers. I may have started in the deep end but it’s this same experience that developed my business resilience.