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Starting a Faith-Based T-Shirt Business Without a Full Business Plan

Hello Readers!

No, I didn’t have a business plan when I started Patriot Prayer Tees LLC.

However, being well-seasoned (ok, a bit older!) and drawing from my experience selling on eBay when eBay was brand new (shocking, I know), I had a rough game plan — outlined below.
It wasn’t written down at the time, but here’s basically how it went:

1. Research (Just Enough)

I researched mainly using Grok and ChatGPT — but I verified things myself too — just enough to get started.
I’m an over-analyzer by nature. I tend to research endlessly, know a ton of “book knowledge,” but not put it into practice.

About six months before starting Patriot Prayer Tees, I shifted my mindset. I looked back at how much time I used to spend researching things like buying a car — months of evenings and weekends reading reviews and shopping — and asked, “Was it really worth all that time?”

Most of the time, the answer was no.

I realized it would’ve been smarter to simply buy the most popular car model at an average price (assuming no major issues) and move on to more important things.
So that’s my approach now: Do just enough research to avoid major pitfalls, then get moving.
The results might be average — but average is better than no results at all.
(Perfection is the enemy of progress — not sure who said it, but they were right!)

Side Note to Step 1:
This is a low-barrier-to-entry business because I use a POD (Print-on-Demand) company.
I didn’t need anything but my laptop or tablet to get started.
I took a slightly longer route than most, but that’s just my style.

Low barrier to entry comes with rewards and risks:

  • Rewards: I’m in business fast, startup costs are low, and the whole world is my customer!
  • Risks: Anyone else can start just as easily. Competition is fierce.

The hardest part will be building a name and getting my brand out there.

2. Form an LLC

(Not legal advice — see disclaimer below.)

I wanted an LLC to separate my personal identity from the business.
I operate it solo, but there are advantages over just selling under my own name.
From what I’ve seen, about 90% of POD sellers don’t bother forming an LLC — that’s just based on conversations with 8–10 other POD sellers.

Setting up the LLC took one evening: I found the process for my state, filled out the forms, and paid the fee.

3. Register to Collect Sales Tax

This step took forever because the state’s website kept crashing during an upgrade.
After many nights of trying, I finally got the application submitted.

4. Get an EIN Number from the IRS

This took less than 15 minutes.
The EIN lets me use the LLC’s identity instead of my personal Social Security number when doing business.

5. Research POD Companies

I repeated some research here — again using Grok and ChatGPT — and verified it myself.

I wanted to know:

  • Who are the top POD companies?
  • Do any offer shirts made in the USA?
  • How is their quality and customer service?

After narrowing it down to 4 top choices, this research took about an hour.

6. Fail Fast, Fail Often

Seriously.

I registered with my top POD choice, used their integrated store option, created a product, and launched my first store in one evening after work.

But after digging deeper, I realized their shirts weren’t even USA cotton (despite their homepage implying it), and I didn’t like how the store looked — it felt outdated.

So I moved on.

7. Try Again with the 2nd Choice

Tried again.
Something in their setup process rubbed me the wrong way — I can’t even remember exactly what — maybe the USA materials again?
Either way, after a few more hours, I decided to move on.

8. Third Time’s the Charm: CustomCat

This time I partnered with CustomCat.

They offer three main integration options:

  1. Shopify — might upgrade to this later as sales grow.
  2. Etsy — tried this first.
  3. WooCommerce — my backup option.

Etsy Setup:
Setting up on Etsy was fairly easy, but because I was an LLC (unlike most sellers), registration dragged out.
They kept asking for document after document for about a week — I’d respond after work, they’d reply the next morning, and so on.

Finally, everything was set up — my CustomCat products synced perfectly to Etsy — then my account got suspended.
No clear reason.
I appealed once but wasn’t reinstated.

Maybe I could have escalated it… but I decided to move on.

9. Building My Own Website (WooCommerce)

I set up my own WordPress site with WooCommerce.

This was my first WordPress site ever.
Even though I followed the documentation, CustomCat wasn’t connecting at first.
Luckily, CustomCat’s support team went above and beyond to help me figure out that some default WordPress settings needed to be changed.

It took about two weeks to fully set up.

10. Improve as I Go

The site works — ordering and catalog are live.
That’s the important part!

There are still things I want to improve:

  • Shipping prices don’t always match actual shipping costs perfectly (sometimes slightly under, sometimes slightly over).
  • Other small tweaks will come over time.

Final Thoughts:

If I had stayed stuck in my old mindset — researching forever — I’d still be researching and not selling shirts.

I had to fail at three different online store setups before finding one that worked and felt right.

Progress > Perfection.

Thanks for reading!

– Patriot Prayer Tees

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