Finding their niche with T-shirts

Chris Prendergast and Tim Krause are T-shirt guys.

They buy them, wear them and design them. But it’s more than an interest, it’s a passion; one they decided to take a chance on.

Sioux Falls-based Powerup Apparel, started by Prendergast and Krause, is a novelty T-shirt company that launched in November. Although the T-shirt market is competitive, Prendergast and Krause knew they could create better shirts than some currently on the market. So they did.

The company’s entire inventory is housed in its “warehouse” — a yellow dining room in Chris’ downtown apartment. The shirts are neatly separated and packed into clear plastic tubs with white lids. They each have educated designs and sayings that are probably only recognizable to a handful of people. It’s that rarity, though, that is the essence of Powerup Apparel shirts.

“Most people wouldn’t get our T-shirts, but those that do, they know right away,” Prendergast said.

“If they do get,” Krause added, “they really appreciate it.”

The site currently offers four different kinds of shirts for men and women, each design centered on a pop culture reference. They are: Knifey Spoony, based on a 1995 episode of “The Simpsons”; Chareth Cutestory, inspired by a first season episode of “Arrested Development”; “Don’t take my word for it,” the catchphrase of LeVar Burton from “Reading Rainbow”; and Pacman: Final Request, taken from the Pacman video game.

Powerup Apparel — named after video game jargon — is a side gig for both Prendergast, who is a freelance web designer and tutor and also works at an after school program, and Krause, who works at Wells Fargo. They met while playing in a brass sextet at Lincoln High School and attended college 90 minutes from each other: Predergast at Purdue University and Krause at Valparaiso University.

They initially started creating T-shirts in 2008 through a third party site, Zazzle.com, when Krause returned to Sioux Falls after his graduation and Prendergast was finishing his master’s in business before he also was to return his hometown. The profit return was low, and they eventually decided to veer away from Zazzle when the site removed one of their designs—an image of Billy Mays’ face, with his hair and beard blending into the top and bottom of the shirt—for likeness infringement.

“It was good for what it was,” Krause said. “It was a one of those no risk, no reward things.”

Having your own T-shirt company may seen like the pipe dream of a college student, but Krause and Prendergast were willing to put in the effort needed. Since their money (personal savings and support from friends and family) is tied to Powerup Apparel, each detail is important.

“When you are putting your own money up, we knew we wanted to make sure it was perfect,” Krause said.

Because of their budget, they currently have four designs, but they hope to expand the selection as their business grows. The four, a mixture of old and new designs, were carefully chosen with every detail being thought through. Krause spent hours looking at Google images of knives until they came up with the right style of knife for Knifey Spooney, and the Reading Rainbow shirt is sold in both gold and yellow to align with gender preferences.

They are also specific on where they purchased the shirts and who printed them. Bigger novelty T-shirt companies, such as Busted Tees and Snorg Tees, use American Apparel, so Chris and Tim chose the U.S. retailer for Powerup Apparel.

For printing, they use Tony Melillo, of Sioux Falls, who works at a bigger shop but has his own equipment for side projects. He was willing and able to do anything they asked.

As a freelance web designer, Prendergast built the site himself, using a WordPress platform. He had experience with building sites, but stretched his skills with the shopping cart and checkout procedure. He researched the components and was working on the site right up until its launch date, Nov. 26.

“We knew if you were going to do it, we were going to do high quality all the way,” he said.

To complete the site, they took thousands of photos, using roughly 20 locations throughout Sioux Falls and seven models. Although the models are their friends and coworkers, they chose them to wear shirts that reflected their interests and personality.

“It’s not about someone who looks good in it, it’s about will they appreciate it,” Krause said.

All purchases are made online, so Prendergast and Krause don’t have much interaction with their customers. (They did get to meet one customer who ordered a shirt for his brother, but put the wrong address for delivery and drove to Sioux Falls to get the shirt in time for Christmas.) Also, not many of their customers are from the area, as their shirts’ niche reach people around the country.

To market, they use social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, but they reach more of a target audience by posting on Pacman or “Arrested Development” fan boards or shirt blogs, such as Shirt.Woot.

They won’t say exactly how many shirts they sold, but that they are doing well. They are even getting ready to make their second order of shirts to be printed. In the future, they hope to add more designs, maybe even kid’s sizes.

Prendergast and Krause wouldn’t mind if Powerup Apparel became their full-time job.

“This will go as far as it goes,” Prendergast said. “At this point, it’s something we want to keep going as long as we can.”

But that’s not the ultimate mission. The goal of Powerup Apparel is to clothe the niche group that makes a Knifey Spoony reference at the dinner or says “Don’t take my word for it” because LeVar Burton was their childhood hero.

They do it for T-shirt people like themselves.

“We like these shirts, Prendergast said. “We would wear these shirts.”

Powerup Apparel from thepostsd on Vimeo.

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