Our home is in Flint, Michigan and we are very proud to be here as entrepreneurs, pursuing the revitalization and restoration of our city. Flint is a unique place full of ideas, artist and entrepreneurs working tirelessly to rebuild due to a recent economical decline and its water crisis. Thus far, Flint has grown tremendously and is continuing to be a light to the world around us. We sought a way to get involved by planting our business here and adding to the business landscape making a long-term contribution. Like Detroit and other cities, Flint is known mainly for its manufacturing industry and we developed our brand with that in mind. Our companies journey began in March of 2014, with a simple t-shirt saying “GoodBoy” across the chest area. From there, we created a plan to grow and we began to physically get involved in our local community. The following year, we branded ourselves and added to our product line featuring various types of clothing options as our demand increased. In addition to that, we’ve shipped to many states and even overseas and then acquired a space in our downtown community to begin developing our merchandise there. This brought us to the next step in our plan, which was to bring our production in-house, turning our shop into a makers space for the brand. We created GoodBoy Clothing to herald the glory of its blue collar days of craftsmanship and hard work which caused the city to soar in the beginning. However, our path is a little different since we have witnessed the development of other companies like Detroit Denim and Shinola. We have seen how these developments have impacted the city of Detroit in a great way, so we seek to do the same here. We sought to do it through textiles and fashion, having some of the best cut and sew clothing operations around the region. Our desire was to make high quality clothing merchandise, using the vehicle of fashion to restore classic American manufacturing to the area. GoodBoy Clothing is a streetwear fashion brand that represented those who would contribute to the community and culture to recreate its economical structure. We are providing industry, job creation and opportunity through this particular venture. Amid the recent water crisis, we have been resilient and optimistic about Flint’s future and therefore, we kept going with our vision to inspire hope. Through your lending together we can help entrepreneurship make Flint become the place it once was. Thank you for your consideration and support upon our journey.
Goodboy Clothing is a lifestyle streetwear brand that specializes in urban and casual wear. Our message to the culture is socially conscious promoting the well-being of the people and world around us. Our goal is to create quality clothing through traditional cut and sew operations by manufacturing our products locally. “From shop to shelf” is our business model, this means that we make and merchandise our own clothing through ethical practices. We seek to create good culture by expressing our core values and moral statement through art while upholding the integrity of a solid brand identity.
Our purchases will consist of various types of clothing production equipment that our team has been trained on (or will be) in preparation for use. The equipment and supplies consists of the following:
Vinyl Cutter
Heat Press
4 color screen printing station
Juki single stitch industrial sewing machine
Packaging
Computer work station essentials
Inventory expansion,
Fabrics and various cut and sew supplies.
Here are the effects of what these purchased items would do for our business:
Our production will be exclusively in-house. This will eliminate our need to outsource products and reduce waste or product overage.
Our employees will be better trained and learn new skills how to operate essential pieces of equipment vital to our operation.
We will increase our industries use of new technology (for clothing and apparel industry)
Our production will increase faster to meet demands of our customers. in addition to that, our made-to-order clothing will begin to be in development.
Higher quality products and the ability to produce various types of garments.
Better equipped for job training for our apprenticeship program and college internships.
A loan of $5,075 helps me to elevate our business from outsourcing to where we can further develop our brand of producing our products from start to finish. This will be acquired through the purchasing of various types of equipment to achieve this goal.