Sponsor the Shirt Startup Diary- The big kick-off

by Startacus Admin

Chris MacRae, the brains behind Sponsor the Shirt has very kindly agreed to keep us up to date with the progress of his project with regular diary posts. He’s off to a smashing start, here’s the first of his updates….

Aftermath of the Big Kick-Off

Sponsor The Shirt was an idea I came up with a few months ago on a bit of a whim. As a typical student running low on funds, while spending half my life on the internet, I decided to combine the two concepts by searching for innovative ways people like me had managed to dig themselves out of a financial hole and pay their way through university.

What I came across surprised me quite a lot! There were two ideas that caught my eye more than anything else. First up was a concept called IWearYourShirt.com, which was exactly as it sounds – a student in America had noticed how companies love to give out free T-shirts to people, despite the fact that people rarely wear them, and so he offered companies the opportunity to pay him to wear their T-shirt for a whole day. He combined this with YouTube videos he’d created giving a little info about each company, and the next thing he knew he’d managed to sell off each and every one of his ‘days’ to companies desperate to get their name out there and drawn in by the uniqueness of his idea.

Secondly I saw a similar idea, by British students this time, that was just as effective, yet twice as crazy, called BuyMyFace.co.uk. This time round, two London students sold off advertising space on their faces in the form of face paint for a whole year, and again paid off their student debt.

So this is where I come in! Willing to be a bit different with my idea, but not quite crazy enough to paint my face every day, I came up with Sponsor The Shirt. I’m wearing the same shirt for the whole of 2014, and offering out every inch of that shirt as advertising space for companies, both big and small. The idea is, I will get any logos or adverts printed on my shirt and wear the shirt all day, every day, for the next year (washing it in between of course!).

The project all kicked off at midnight on 1st January this year, as I wore the shirt for my New Year’s celebrations. I’ve worn it every day since then and have found that the more I wear it, the more offers I’m getting to places ads on it. People are really taking to the idea and a particular highlight for myself was being featured in the Daily Record over Christmas.

It’s really kicking off now and I’m starting to make some much-needed money from the idea. On Friday 17th January I set off on a charity hitch-hike to Berlin with two friends and will be wearing the shirt the whole way there, hoping to get a bit of European exposure for the companies who have partnered with me, and in particular Startacus, to whom I owe it to for being the first company to place their logo on my shirt and have faith in the idea.

Now it’s off to Berlin for me… as of today, 349 days to go!

Email me on: sponsortheshirt@gmail.com

Check me out on Twitter: @sponsortheshirt

If you enjoyed reading about Chris' startup journey then you will love the diary posts that music dicovery platform Rormix have been writting

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Published on: 22nd January 2014