How Donald Trump Helped My T-Shirt Side Hustle do $100k in a Month

February 28, 2022 Alex Einhorn

How Donald Trump Helped My T-Shirt Side Hustle do $100k in a Month

I don't know Trump personally; But I shit you not, he played a major role in how my side hustle, Philly Drinkers LLC had a $100k sales month. Here's the true and incredibly lucky story.

My side biz designs and prints Philadelphia inspired clothing, which we sell online and in a few storefronts across PA. I'm the only employee.

In the spring of 2021, we got a referral through many friends of friends... for a Philly based landscaping company interested in switching apparel providers.

It was Four Seasons Total Landscaping.

Yes, THAT Four Seasons Total Landscaping; the company that agreed to host the now infamous Rudy Giuliani press conference that launched the protest of the 2020 presidential election.

I was familiar with the Giuliani presser... and the memes that came with it, but I would have never predicted what would follow for my stupid t-shirt hustle.

The Four Seasons folks behind the press conf were awesome, and marketing geniuses in their own right.

MAN, did they capitalize on a golden opportunity... to the tune of over $1M in online clothing sales.

By embracing the situation with humor and not fear of what the world would think of them, they launched a merch store (without a print provider, at first) and were pleasantly surprised.

They did $1.8M in shirt sales in the months that followed.

Back to the spring 2021, Four Seasons had built a fun and engaged social following. The 2020 election protests started to fade, as did their apparel sales.

(Still not a bad 15 mins of fame, right!?) Here's where I came in:

We pitched them on a partnership with Philly Drinkers:

Host their online store with us.
Design and create apparel for their staff.
Print + fulfill their orders.
Design, create and sell new officially licensed FSTL Philly themed merch.

We launched, and the fun started.

We designed and printed new items, stocked inventory, and fulfilled everything from our warehouse in Lancaster, PA.

We saw a steady bump in sales, I even personally packed and shipped an online order from Tony Hawk.

Months go by and Four Seasons was still getting decent pop online. They even booked an August concert on site with Laura Jane Grace & Brendan Kelly.

Philly Drinkers got the rights to print and sell the official concert tee.

The concert news was an "ahah!" moment for me. I LOVE craft beer and already had relationships in the space.

"What if we create an official Four Seasons Total Landscaping beer with a kickass can label to be sold at the concert?!"

Lawn Jawn IPA was born.

We brought in Funk Brewing to brew, can and join us at the event to sell (...and drink) beer, while we handled the merch.

When we unveiled the can label via the Philadelphia Inquirer, the beer world went crazy.

My phone was blowing up from distributors and restaurants from around the country who wanted to sell the beer. We slapped the beer can label on shirts and other items, and they started to sell as well.

The city did not love the idea of a concert..in a parking lot..at a landscaping company, it almost never happened.

But it did, and hundreds of people drank a beer that I had literally made up in my head, weeks prior.