What if you were able to change the world simply by buying a tee that you were already planning on purchasing?
Founders of One Billion Shirts Gregory Berry and Albion "Albie" Calaj have turned that idea into a full-fledged social enterprise. Though Berry and Calaj began their venture in 2012, the real story behind the startup goes far beyond New England, and all the way back to the Kosovo War in the mid-nineties.
Calaj, the company's CEO, was born in Kosovo, where he bore witness to the violence and corruption of the conflict that swept the country. In 1999, Calaj was rescued and brought to the United States at the age of 14 by a number of charities. He never forgot how fortunate he was to escape, and pledged to pay it forward someday.
After sending himself to school and building a career at Morgan Stanley, Calaj decided that "someday" had come around at last. When he was introduced to Berry, who has a background in apparel production, the lightbulb went off.
Much like the popular T-shirt printing site CustomInk, One Billion Shirts mocks up and creates customizable tees in bulk for organizations and companies of all sizes. Berry and Calaj's social enterprise offers a big differentiator, however: it donates 25 cents per shirt sold to a charity of the customer's choice. After less than two years in the market, One Billion Shirts has partnered with nearly 20 charities across the country, including the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, charity: water and South Boston's Artists for Humanity.
If the donation isn't enough to shake up the habits of those ordering in bulk, perhaps One Billion Shirts' price cut will push them over the edge.
"CustomInk sells the same exact shirts, with the same exact ink, for $5.52 each. We'll print them for $3.55, and then donate another 25 cents from that to charity," explained Berry. Added the co-founder, "The buying process is staying the exact same, we're just proving there's a different way of doing it, that can help others."
One Billion Shirts also verges from the norm when it comes to T-shirt sales among charities. "Most cause marketing is designed so that when you buy a certain shirt, they'll donate a portion of the sale to charity. We're not asking you to buy anything in addition. We're just asking you to leverage an order you're already planning on making," shared Berry.
One Billion Shirts just began taking orders in the second quarter of 2013, but has already commissioned and sold around 20,000 shirts, donating $5,000. The company hopes to ink many more client deals come the new year, as corporations enter their orders for swag with company signage.
Berry himself has a rich background of bootstrapping within the apparel industry. "In a way, I guess T-shirts have always been my little hustle," acknowledged the co-founder. In college, he started printing his own T-shirts to support his Italian food distribution business. So popular were the shirts, that Berry began a website dedicated to printing T-shirts with the names of towns and cities on them, which he and his friends would ship around the country, as well as peddle at major league sports venues. "We'd print 500 shirts and go to Yankees Stadium, sell out and then get to go to the game," said Berry, laughing.
With One Billion Shirts, he's transforming his knowledge of the industry into both revenue and philanthropic gain.
"It's a colossal industry, and we're diverting it into a charitable living," said Berry. "When we have one billion shirts printed per year, we believe we will be able to really affect the industry. We want other printing companies to adopt this socially conscious way of doing business. If we do that, then we will have done our job."
