Wow. I am amazed that every post I've read here says this is a good idea. Not that the shirts wouldn't be cute. I'm sure they would be, and many of would be happy to wear them.

But, as a business idea, who hasn't thought of creating a new t-shirt? Just how many t-shirt makers can the market support? One of the first rules of creating a new business, and especially a new product, is to find a niche. You want something that would be in demand, but that would not have too much competition. The competition to succeed with t-shirts is so fierce that it would likely be more of a hobby than a business.

Here's an easy way to get a sense of how much competition there will be for your product. I did a Google search for "mom t-shirts". First, you can see that there are over 14 million results for this term. You can also look at how many people are bidding on the term, actually paying money to attract visitors, by counting the number of sponsored links. The page has about 8 sponsored links the first time you do the search (both along the top and the right column). If you look at the bottom of the right column, there should be a link for "more sponsored listings" (this only shows up the first time you do the search). If you click on this link, you get MANY pages of additional sponsored listings. I saw that it went up to at least 12 pages, but that was still followed by dot, dot, dot.

Now, for comparison's sake, try a search for "folding purse hanger". First, there are only 28,500 total results. When you look at the sponsored listings, there are still enough to fill up the first page, but, when you click on the link for "more sponsored listings," they all fit on the next page. Now, that's a better market to go after. There are others that could be even better. You want to follow the money to some extent (if almost nobody is paying for clicks there's probably not much money being spent by consumers on that type of product), but you don't want too much competition.

I hope this exercise can help out those of you who are considering new business and product ideas.

If you can do the t-shirts for fun without putting a lot of money into the project, you'll probably sell some to people who know you and make a few bucks. I just wouldn't recommend it as a major business launch where you expect to market outside of circles where you can make a personal connection. This kind of thing usually does best if you can make them truly unique in some way, and if you start locally with people who know you. If people start seeing the shirts and asking for them, you may be able to grow from there.

- Kristin