Ten years ago I sold an old laptop to print a shirt about a city I wasn't even born in. Here's how I got there, and why I'm still at it.

High school

I don't know exactly why I started designing shirts in high school. I had no experience and no design software, just ideas. My first "design tool" was the online shirt builder on CustomInk.com, which wasn't exactly revolutionary. I was basically dragging clip art around a screen. But it was enough to get me hooked, and when the first shirt I'd actually designed showed up in the mail, it was game on.

One of the first real ones came out of a football game on August 29, 2008. My school, Ravenwood, was hosting Brentwood Academy, and we had never beaten them. Not once. I was one of those guys who painted up for games and ran the flags when we scored, so you could say I was invested.

Going into the fourth quarter we were down 21-14, and BA had already returned two kickoffs 90 yards for touchdowns. Then our quarterback, Alex Williams, hit Ryan Fitzpatrick for a touchdown to make it 21-20. We didn't kick it. We went for two, Williams found Bo Gilroy, and just like that it was 22-21. First win over BA in school history.

I went home and got to work on a shirt: a football and two helmets clashing (classic). I had no concept of copyright law. I was just a boy living in a t-shirt fantasy. I sold them to my classmates. It wasn't a business plan, but it was the first time I saw something I made walking around on other people. That was exciting. It still is.

I even found an old photo of my friend Tori wearing the shirt next to my friend Josiah (we'll get to him later).

College

After high school I ventured far, far away from home, all the way to Chattanooga (about two hours down I-24), to attend UTC. The rush of designing shirts had faded a little. I was onto a new adventure.

Chattanooga back then was simple. We'd ride and longboard through downtown late into the night with a sense of freedom blowing in our hair (I actually had some back then), usually headed to The Pickle Barrel, Honest Pint or Chattanooga Billiards Club for a game of pool, and almost always ending with a chicken and logs run to Kanku's. We'd RipStik through parking garages and tailgate for no reason at all, just because it sounded fun.

Camping, hiking, and any adventure with friends was what I lived for. We spent plenty of evenings on Sunset Rock watching the sun drop behind the ridges, and camped in places we probably shouldn't have, like Rainbow Lake and Edwards Point.

Side note: Edwards Point is where my friend Hayden fell into a crevice and we genuinely thought we'd lost him. He's fine (pictured below mid yawn). The spot has since been officially renamed (by us) Hayden's Hole.

I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, so I started as a business major. It seemed like a safe choice. After one semester I switched to art, which was not a safe choice. My only art background was some elementary school lessons and a few low-quality t-shirts, and I had no clue what I'd do with it. But I ended up graduating with a degree in Graphic Design, and I'd found my calling.

Before I'd learned a single real design tool, though, and still with zero understanding of copyright law (should have taken a few more business classes), I made a Mocs shirt in my trusty CustomInk design program. Bootleg Scrappy was born. I printed 100 and sold them far and wide, until one day an official-looking email showed up. As I read it, my excitement turned to fear. It was a cease and desist letter from the university. I gave the rest away for free and figured that was the last I'd ever hear from UTC. It wasn't.

The beginning of NativeMade

My design career started while I was still at UTC, with an internship at Level 2 Design (now Triptych). Most of my experience was in print up to this point, but I was fascinated by the web. Over the next several years I designed websites, VR and AR experiences, and interactive exhibits for the Creative Discovery Museum. It was good, fun work. But something was missing, and I could hear the t-shirts whispering in my ear. "Come back to us. We miss you."

The way back came from somewhere I didn't expect. A coworker showed me something called Snapchat geofilters, which I'd never heard of. You could design a filter, pin it to a specific place, and anyone there could use it. I was hooked. Whenever my wife and I traveled, I'd make one for wherever we were, as a little design experiment in capturing the feeling of a place on a phone screen.

In 2015 I made one for Chattanooga: a flat graphic of Lookout Mountain with "Chattanooga, Tennessee" underneath, set in Cha, the city's own typeface. About a year after it went live, it had been used more than 2.5 million times and viewed more than 40 million times.

Somewhere in there it clicked. If that many people wanted to rep this city on a Snapchat filter, maybe they'd want to wear it too. So I sold an old laptop to pay for the first print order, had them printed at 127 Press, and sold them online to friends, neighbors, and coworkers. I even set up shop in the lobby of the Bellhops office and pitched shirts to anyone who walked by. That design was the first shirt I ever sold, before NativeMade was even a concept. A lot of those early supporters are still wearing that original shirt today, faded, soft, and probably a little holey (I see you, Matt Intemann).

Why "NativeMade"

I thought long and hard about the name. Like so many others, I fell in love with Chattanooga, and it became home fast. Some of my favorite memories and best friendships happened here, and I wanted a brand that captured that feeling of belonging to a place. Every design I had planned was going to be about Chattanooga or about hometowns, so I went to the dictionary.

Native: belonging to the place where someone or something was born or formed, like a "native New Yorker."
Made: built or shaped in a specific way, like handmade or custom-made.

I wasn't born here, and I'm not an original inhabitant of this land. But I am rooted here. I believe the more you invest in the place you call home, the more you become a local. The people I've met, the stories I've heard, and every late night and early sunrise in between have shaped me into who I am. Native is where you're from. Made is what a place does to you. Chattanooga made me.

Chattanooga isn't perfect, but it sure is special.

Ten years in

Ten years sounds like a straight line. It wasn't.

In 2022 I made up my mind to close NativeMade for good. I was burnt out, I wasn't making any money, and the spark that made this fun in the first place was gone. I was even in talks with one of my wholesale accounts to sell the whole business for about $5k. Six years of work for roughly a lifetime supply of Kanku's chicken and logs.

But when I sat with it and looked at what I'd actually built, I couldn't do it. I walked away from the offer and just stepped back from the business for a while. Anyone who runs a small business knows it's a lot of work, and running one while working full time and raising kids is no joke. It had all caught up to me. So I took time off, spent it with my family and friends, and started paying attention to the things I'd been neglecting: sleep, health, the people I love. Life is all about balance, and I didn't have any. Once I got some of it back, I slowly found myself interested in NativeMade again, and the spark came with it.

Some of my proudest moments came right after that. In August 2023 the university reached out again, and this time it wasn't a cease and desist. They liked the designs we'd been putting out and wanted to know if I'd make officially licensed UTC merch. I met the heads of the athletic and licensing departments for lunch, and that kicked off a partnership I'm still so proud of. From bootlegger to officially licensed. Same school, very different email. I plan to make a lot more for UTC in the years ahead.

Then in April 2024, the Chattanooga REI reached out about stocking some of our designs: Hike Chatt, the Raccoon Mountain Alpine Slide, and the National Park City tee. Y'all cleared out the National Park City tees (thank you). Seeing our designs on a stage as big as REI is still a little surreal.

I can't do this alone

It's easy to get stuck in a routine and forget to look up. At some point I realized I'd been doing this on my own for way too long. I was missing people. I was missing working with friends.

That's where Josiah came in.

Josiah and I met in high school. We went to UTC together. We've stayed friends the whole way. A few years ago we reconnected and started working on NativeMade together.

He's the reason a lot more people actually see what I've been designing. He runs our ads, and he helps me dream about where NativeMade could go. He brings out the dreamer in me, the one I sometimes push down in the name of being practical.

It's refreshing. When the world tells you not to do something, it helps to have a friend who just says, "Why not?"

I've also leaned on the talents of a lot of other people. Like Jered Martin. One heck of a guy, and an okay photographer. (Kidding, Jered.) And so many talented designers and creatives here in town. Chattanooga has a one-of-a-kind creative scene.

Why I'm still at it

Ten years in, our dreams are bigger than our wallets. Someday we want a shop of our own, a real, physical place where you can browse, run into friends, and where we can host events that bring our neighbors together more often. And definitely a few more tailgates for no reason. No game, no occasion, just a reason to get together.

We're working on bringing all of our printing in house, though in the meantime we're still learning how to screen print (pray for our test shirts). We might even venture a little past home, to help other people love where they live just a little bit more. For now, we'll keep doing what we're doing: making high-quality shirts and designs we're proud of, for the places and people we love. And this time, I'm doing it with some balance.

If ten years taught me anything, it's that loving where you live isn't just what you say when someone asks, "So, do you like it here?" It's something you do. It's investing in your neighbors, giving back to your community, supporting local businesses and creatives, and working together to leave this place a little better than when we got here.

Thanks for being part of it. Whether you bought one of those first shirts or found us last week, you're the reason we're still here. Here's to the next ten.

Love Where You Live.™