An idea, a pitch, and a design came together for the birth of DAT Clothing. The steps were as clear as a manual for assembling Ikea furniture, and the actual implementation just as challenging. Nevertheless, Anish Shah succeeded and is now the proud co-founder of DAT Clothing, along with Tony Ren and Dhruv Janmeja. “DAT” is both an acronym of their names and simultaneously a catchy brand name known on the McGill campus. Modeled on the logos of Supreme and Obey, popular brands that target young adults, the T-shirt was an instant hit.The idea came to them during an accounting assignment, and twelve hours later they had a product. “We played around with the design on Photoshop, immediately contacted a manufacturer and had 100 T-shirts shipped to us,” explained Anish. The team has a collective passion for entrepreneurship: they branded the T-shirts trendily, with the logo “McGll” stamped in red. The product is a cheap alternative to clothing from the university bookstore, and is the team’s own personal stamp on the McGill community. “We are well known in lower campus, but we need to expand our reach to make a real stamp,” explains Anish. “Who doesn’t want to represent their school?”Despite efforts to avoid being sued by branding “McGll”, they came under fire from Western University located in London, Ontario. Indeed, legal action was taken and they were sent a notice to cease and desist on the basis that they were “impending on Western University’s sales.” The team says their reaction was to just ignore it, because “they claimed our company was eating up their sales but that make no sense as we are two different universities, someone from Western is not going to wear a McGill shirt and vice versa”. The case escalated to threats of taking DAT Clothing to court but fell through due to a lack of basis for such actions. Nevertheless, Anish does admit to it being “quite terrifying at the time.” It seemed like a lot of trouble over a business run from their residential dorms.Although DAT Clothing has a website and a Facebook page with models posing in the T-shirts, the best form of advertising proves to be simply wearing the merchandise. “People have bought the T-shirt at the gym just because they saw us wearing them. I think just actually wearing the T-shirt around the campus gets enough hype,” claims Anish. Currently, their online website is not as established as the three would like, but they hope that a plan to branch into more merchandise will increase their online traffic.The same way their “McGll” logo is missing an “I”, Anish himself is very much a team player. Throughout our interview, there was no attempt to take entire credit for the product, and he displayed support for his team. “It was interesting to take a product from inception to fruition, realizing that not all ideas are feasible and what it takes to make a product successful.” A highly engaged individual both in his education and extracurricular activities, Anish balances his company along with MUS (first year involvement team), MES (public relations coordinator) and studies. “At first it was a tough balance to maintain with setting up the website, collecting orders (both online and in person), and delivering them but now it has settled down.”What are his goals for the future? “I want to be wealthy and happy.” Anish cites his father as a major role model in his life, who “turned something out of nothing” when he move from India to Canada at the age of 27 and subsequently got a job as an accountant. For Anish, co-founding the DAT Clothing brand within his first two months at McGill looks like a positive step for his life goals coming true as well.
Image Retrieved From: http://datclothing.bigcartel.com/products