Michael BowenakaMike Waxx

Note: to better understand the evolution of Shirt App, please also check out gfx.

After realizing I wanted to explore new projects outside of the music industry, i spent a couple years learning about app development and ultimatley launched Shirt App in 2017.

I was always passionate about web design and started tinkering on a few experiments (a snowmobile video game, etc). During this time, my friend Gabe and i were trying to make money by selling t-shirts, but were always struggling to find a straightforward, quick and consistent way of doing this. He knew i wanted to make an app, and suggested something like this. I leveraged talent on upwork, ultimately landing with a dev studio in Ukraine, and spent a year of my life on a nocturnal clock to get Shirt launched.

My friend payton and i, who was finishing up college at the time, doubled down on marketing content (a skill i picked up in my previous chapters.) As soon as we launched the app, we ran ads on Facebook and saw results. Our plan worked! Once the revenue was steady, we could finally rebuild our app with a local team, participating in daily sprints and learning the agile process. Over 1million installs later, hundreds of thousnads of orders, an Idris Elba screengrab, and a stellar app store rating, Shirt was a success. Especially as my first app.

Currently, our development resources are put towards gfx (basically Shirt App2.0, it's another active project thats taken precedent), so the quality of Shirt has declined. But i still love it with a passion and hope to revisit it at some point.