the things we think but do not say

Hubwear in Chicago magazine

Originally uploaded by georgeaye.

Hubwear is nearing the close of its second year and it’s been a thrilling ride. But let me back up a second since some of you might not know what I’m talking about.

Hubwear is the project that I created with my finacee and partner Sara just under 2 years ago. It’s a website that sells t-shirts (currently) to urban travelers that have a story to tell. And watching it happen right in front of my very eyes, it’s grown and grown and become a real business, with real products and real customers.

Back at the beginning in April 2006, it grew from a tiny stem cell to what’s now a rather healthy young kid. And to take the child analogy even further, when I started working on Hubwear at the beginning without anyones help, it was a scrawny, ugly kid with little to no sense-of-self or direction. It was a spotty, acned pre-teen. But once Sara got on board, the rebellious brat got a rude awakening and got sent to Excel boot camp! Suddenly, orders were being recorded in a timely fashion! Shipments of shirts from American Apparel were flying in just in time for finishing. Rigorous quality control was finally in place and there was a dramatic drop in errors and wasted product. Our spotty pre-teen was finally growing up and getting ready for high school.

Last year we got a lot of good blog links, referalls and endorsements (most notable was by Springwise ) and this year has seen more of the same. But just in the last week, we got our first major, printed publication!

Chicago Magazine included us in their Christmas Gift Guide this year and we’ve been bombarded with orders. (Irconically enough, here’s a link to the feature on their magazine’s site

There’s just something about being printed, on paper, in a real magazine that somehow gives any product legitimacy. Even in a time where Web 2.0 interconnectivity is everything, having our t-shirts in magazine means we can reach an audience that might never have seen our concept before. This year, Chicago Magazine. Next year, Lucky!

So, Horray for Hubwear! Horray for good press! And here’s to a thrilling 2008!

It’s been a long time since I made any mention of Hubwear, but the site and the business is doing just fine. Sara, my girlfriend, partner and all round best-thing-in-my-life, has become a major part of the company and we’ve refocused and clarified a lot of what Hubwear means. We’ve got a brand spanking new site and it’s a hundred times clearer to navigate, explore and shop. It was a little too art house for mass consumption. Kudos to Sandy Weisz, our wonderful website designer.

But there’s more. Today I have fantastic news as Sara and I were interviewed in Gridskipper.com (the urban travel guide) the othere day and the post went live! We discuss at some length, in which city we’d like to be imprisoned Odd question, it might seem, but it yielded some interesting questions about where we’d go to eat, shop, hang out. Thanks to Brittany Belgardt for the opportunity to talk.

As with any small business, one hopes that each year leads to new and a exciting opportunities. I have a good feeling that this year will be a good one for us.