Side-Hustle Series: Sustainable Clothing Shop with Teemill

As part of my side hustle series, I’m sharing a great way to launch a sustainable clothing brand. When I learned about Teemill and their renewable methods and easy-to-use online shop, I had to introduce them to you.

I’ve been entertaining an idea to launch a tee shirt line because why not right? It’s a passive income, something you can scale once you have some designs to sell, and with print on demand taken care of for you, it’s a very hands-free side hustle.

I’m still playing around with my Teemill shop, but you can see what I started. I love that you can use their design app to create your own tee designs quickly without even having images of your own. Of course you can add licensed images or your own designs if you’ve got artistic skills. I love their mock-up images too that are ready to use.

Tell us about Teemill and what inspired you to launch a sustainable clothing platform?

Rob and Drake Knight the founders started in a garden shed on Isle of Wight. They looked at the clothing industry, realized there was a massive problem, and wanted to do something about it.

In the clothing industry, around 60% of clothing is made from plastic. Three out of five T-shirts bought today will be thrown away within a year, and most of that is landfilled or incinerated.

That’s the equivalent of a dump truck a second of what is plastic textile waste getting burned or buried, and that’s completely unsustainable.

Mart and Rob thought “Why don’t we make clothes from natural materials instead of plastic? Use renewable energy instead of fossil fuels, and surely you can make clothes from old ones like recycling. Surely that can work.”

As a step we started off as a fashion brand but we quickly realized unless it became a massive brand and unless everyone transitioned to that way of thinking we weren’t going to have the impact needed with the time frame we needed to do it in. That made us share the technology with anyone who wanted to be part of the solution.

This where Teemill came from, Teemill is an online platform that is completely free that enables anyone in the world to make products in a circular way. All our products are made from natural materials in renewable energy powered factories, and everything we make is designed from the start to come back to us when it’s worn out. We then make new products from the material we recover which can be remade over and over again.

I understand Teemill uses a circular economy, can you tell our readers how that works?

Every product we make is designed from the start to be used again.

We give our customers money off their next order in return for the material. We use that material, chop it up and make new products from that material.

Instead of creating waste, we create new products from it. That’s the circular economy in action.

Fundamentally it saves money because the customer gets money off their next order, and the environment doesn’t have a whole lot of waste and resources ripped out of it.

It’s a win, win, win.

How does Teemill help busy moms launch their own business?

Busy moms can launch their own clothing business in minutes, from their phone or laptop. We print-on-demand and dropship directly to their customers, so there is no need to worry about leftover inventory. Alongside no startup costs, Teemill brings high profitability by giving moms an online store that is optimized for search engines.

One of the biggest steps to build a brand online is choosing what to sell. We have loads of free illustrations and templates which you can remix, or you can upload your own artwork. The platform is also packed with marketing tools, thousands of professional graphics and millions of photos, including photography mock-ups.

What are the fees associated with opening a new shop and selling on Teemill?

Teemillis completely free to start up, we offer a professional account for £10 month, but it’s not a necessity when starting a store, it just helps if you want to scale your business quicker.

Does Teemill help promote new shops and designs?

We have a support section within the platform that includes blogs about making your first sale and tutorials on product and page building. We also have a chat for pro users who can talk with other store owners or speak with specialized workers at Teemill, from marketing to design.

I understand Teemill is based in the UK but ships worldwide. Is there a way to specify the currency when creating a design?

The currency of a product will automatically change depending on what country the customer is visiting the store from. For example, if a customer was looking at your store who was living in France, your product would automatically be converted to euros.

Give us some examples of the bestselling shops on Teemill?

Sure – our technology means we work with a vast range of individuals & organizations whether that be big multinationals such as Greenpeace UK, BBC Earth and Yoga With Adriene. Then to people who just want to start their own brand.

It’s an incredibly easy and convenient way for anyone to jump into being part of a sustainable solution: Deguisementclothing, Cool Calm and Caine Clothing, Natty Designs, Branded and Moniker.

Any advice you have to busy moms starting a listing on Teemill?

My advice to anyone starting a store would be use the tools and help provided on the platform. There are many blogs you can read to help you increase your sales.

Looking at data our most successful stores are those that have a brand story and use their own photography.

My final bit of advice would be to be patient, building a brand takes time, but the rewards are worth it.