Accidental Merch Queen: How a Sunday Afternoon Experiment Changed My Business
I need to tell you about the best four hours I spent on my business last year.
It all started with a LinkedIn shitpost, as so many good things do.
The Origin Story
A few weeks before my accidental entry into the merch game, I was having a laugh with some people in my community on LinkedIn. We were riffing on passive-aggressive cap designs. Things you desperately want to say but can’t actually say in professional settings.
“I Don’t Have Capacity.” “It Depends.” Little legal in-jokes like “Fit and Proper Person” or “Reasonable Person.”
We had our fun. I enjoyed the banter then I moved on.
Fast forward a few weeks…
It’s a Sunday afternoon and I’m tinkering around on my website doing absolutely nothing productive. My website platform pops up with a suggestion: “Hey, have you thought about integrating with Printful for custom merch?”
I clicked the link out of curiosity.
Four hours later, I had an entire drop-shipping store set up. Multiple cap designs. Different colours. Everything connected seamlessly to my existing website.
The platform had optimised things I didn’t even know needed optimising. SEO, searchability, page load speed, file naming conventions. All the e-commerce stuff that the professionals spend years mastering? Just done for me. 🤷🏻♀️
I posted about it casually on Instagram.
Then LinkedIn.
and… off we went!
What Actually Happened
By the end of the year, people were buying these caps in bulk. For themselves. For their teams. For team building days. There’s a whole Litigation Team somewhere in Australia that all have matching “I Don’t Have Capacity” caps. We even customised them with their names on the back.
I’ve had people send me photos of themselves wearing the caps on holidays. At Disney. Out walking the dog. Someone recently told me they spotted one of my caps “in the wild”.
I didn’t brand them with Counsel Media or Career Big Sis and that was deliberate.
I wanted them to stand on their own. If someone likes it, they’ll ask or they’ll find me. But really, it’s not even about that. It’s about creating something that’s useful, fun and signals “if you know, you know.”
The Unsexy Truth About E-commerce
Let me be clear: you can’t just set up a drop-shipping store and expect it to sell itself.
The merch works because I show up and talk about it. Because I create content. Because I’ve built a community that gets the joke and wants to be part of it.
I’m losing a few dollars on some international orders, depending on shipping costs. I don’t care. I’m not optimising for money here. (If I was, let’s be real I’d still be in my big corporate job).
I’m optimising for impact, creativity, joy and getting my name out there in a fun way.
This is a different proposition at this stage of my business and I’m okay with that.
The margins are terrible because I’m drop-shipping and haven’t invested in my own inventory. But that’s exactly the point. It was a minimum viable product and having worked in tech long enough, I know the value of an MVP.
It proved something important: people in this profession are desperate for a little fun, a little colour and a little creativity.
Even, for the power of shared community experience.
The Lessons (Because There Are Always Lessons)
✨ Follow the breadcrumbs: I didn’t set out to become a merch queen. I listened to my community, spotted an opportunity and spent a Sunday afternoon seeing where it led.
✨Don’t be afraid to be a beginner: I knew nothing about e-commerce. I still don’t, not really. But I tried something, iterated and learned as I went.
✨Your community will tell you what they want: That LinkedIn banter wasn’t just jokes. It was market research I didn’t even know I was conducting.
✨ Set-and-forget doesn’t mean zero effort: The store is automated, sure. But I still need to create content, talk about the products, show up and respond to emails about a parcel lost in transit just before the team building day. That’s the work.
✨Small experiments can teach you massive things: I’ve learned so much about how people buy this type of product, why they buy, what price points work and how physical products create presence in a digital world.
This whole experience has expanded my understanding of marketing, branding and creator strategy in ways I never expected.
What’s Next
I’m looking at expanding into different SKUs (look at me using the terminology 💅🏻). I’ve got sassy ideas for mugs but the creative opportunities are genuinely unlimited.
I’ve also been experimenting with other platforms. Temu for custom pieces like ‘Peep the Pearl’ pens and magnets (quality isn’t great, keeping that in R&D for now), Sticker Mule for stickers. I’ve heard good things about Vistaprint too.
This is all feeding into a bigger live social shopping strategy that I’m developing too.
Content creators need to think about their physical presence in the digital world. What tangible thing can people hold that represents your brand, your community and creates a shared experience?
The Point
I wake up to orders placed overnight, going all over the world.
People genuinely enjoy their products and the quality is there. Sure, I’ve had one or two that got lost in the post. I’ve worked in retail and supply chain, I know that’s just part of doing business.
I issue refunds, send apology stickers and use it as an opportunity to increase brand value.
Mostly it’s been an awesome little experiment.
Like I said, I didn’t set out to get into the e-commerce game. That’s actually the best part. It was organic, community-led and ridiculously fun.
If you’re building something (a business, a brand, a community), don’t discount the weird little breadcrumbs that show up on random Sunday afternoons. Don’t be afraid to spend four hours on something that might go nowhere. Don’t be afraid to try something you know nothing about.
The litigation lawyers in their matching “I Don’t Have Capacity” caps would probably agree with me.
The Counsel Store is real, the caps are excellent and yes, I’m still surprised by all of this too!
If you want one, you know where to go 👀
Mel
✨
