Today I wanted to share my personal experience with the Penji design service. We’ll discuss some of the pros and cons of the service in this Penji review. We will also look at some ways to improve the output of your t-shirt business. Be sure to read till the end, because I’ll be giving you a discount code and a special bonus.
For those of you who read my article about starting a t-shirt business, you’ll be aware that I started it just about two years ago and have been loving it. Unlike other business models I have experimented with, a print-on-demand t-shirt business is relatively passive income. You do the work upfront and reap the benefits for months or years after.
I wrote in my review of the Merch Momentum Newsletter that I get most of my research and keyword leads from that source. The one element in my business that was taking up the most time because I was ultimately in “do it yourself” mode was the design process.
I’m not a trained graphic designer. I never went to school for it nor taken any formal training. I’m also not particularly good at it. It can take years to get skilled in the world of design. I’m not in the t-shirt business for the sake of design, but rather to have a creative outlet that makes me money. I love conceptualizing a shirt that will speak to certain people, but the physical process of doing the design is often tedious when you are not skillful at it.
Enter Penji. I had been thinking about subscribing to this service or its competitor Design Pickle for a long time. I first started looking into this roughly a year ago when I attended the Merch By Amazon Conference in Seattle. One person in particular who spoke highly of Penji was Yong from the Merch Minds Podcast. He told me a lot about the good experiences he had with their service and how it helped his business.
Despite hearing this, I never pulled the trigger. Why?
Because I was cheap, I didn’t want to go “into the red” to take on this monthly subscription. Revenue at the time wasn’t going to cover the $369/month cost.
If I could get in my Delorian time machine and go back a year, I would kick myself for that attitude. The POD t-shirt model is already one of the cheapest businesses you can own. The overhead is next to nothing compared to online business models like private labeling products on Amazon or traditional brick-and-mortar type businesses.
When I finally decided to get started with Penji, my business began to have tremendous growth to the point where I finally broke the $1000 mark in August of this year. I’m very excited to see what this 4th quarter of 2019 brings with the addition of a design team.
So how does it work?
The subscription itself is on a month to month basis unless you opt for the yearly subscription. Penji offers a 15-day money back guarantee so you can try it out with zero risk. A regular membership runs you $369 a month, and you get to have two active projects at any given time. Depending on the project, it takes about 24-48 hours for completion. The project itself doesn’t have to be just one design. When we get to the tips section of this article, I’ll talk about how I maximize my output from Penji to maximize how this service works for me.
The projects you submit don’t have to be just t-shirts. You can have any graphic design work you need created through Penji. This aspect is particularly useful if you are selling on Etsy with POD integration from a company like Printful. Selling on Etsy opens up different type of product opportunities (mugs, aprons, etc.) that your Penji designers can create for you.
You don’t have to limit your Penji design work to just print-on-demand items. I’ve used my Penji design team to make e-book covers, and they did a great job with that as well. I previously used Fiverr for this type of work, and there isn’t even a comparison in the quality; Penji blows away everyone I’ve ever used on Fiverr.
Aside from selling products with Penji designs yourself, you can also use the Penji service to subcontract jobs. Suppose you want to sell services on Fiverr. Why not use your Penji team to create graphic projects for your clients? One method that I heard of someone doing is going out to Craigslist searching the “Gigs” section and finding projects they could accomplish with their designers. These gigs, like logo or business card design, often pay $50 or more. Find just a few of these jobs in any given month, and your subscription to Penji pays for itself.
So what are the drawbacks of Penji? Is Penji a scam?
There aren’t any drawbacks I can think of, and no it’s not a scam. They have just worked out a perfect system of matching design talent with people who need it. I think they have an excellent management team in place and that’s a big reason they are so successful.
One thing, in particular, I’ll say about the management team is that they take steps to avoid infringement. When you go to places like Fiverr for design work, there is a good chance you are going to get artwork elements that aren’t correctly licensed. With Penji, they make sure that their graphic elements are appropriately authorized. Being careful not only protects them but also protects you from potentially getting an infringement complaint.
What if you aren’t happy with the graphics you receive from Penji?
Well, there are a few things. One cool aspect of the platform is that they will let you request a new designer. They have it set up in a way where you’re not going to have to fire the person or potentially hurt their feelings. They don’t assign that particular designer to your account anymore. I’ve never had to use this feature because I’m incredibly happy with my designers, but it’s nice to know this option exists.
The other thing which is excellent about Penji is that it’s on a month-by-month basis unless you opt-in for the yearly subscription. There is no contract, so if you’re not happy with what you’re getting or you’re not using the service enough, you can cancel it. For this reason, I would highly recommend starting with a monthly plan before upgrading to a yearly plan.
How can you get the most out of your Penji subscription?
Here are some tips for people who are new to Penji:
- Load up to the project queue. Even though you can only have two projects active at one time, you can load as many projects as you like into the queue. I’ll usually load a couple dozen projects at a time and then not worry about it for a couple weeks.
- Request multiple variations under one project. If you want a dabbing dog shirt, consider asking for numerous breeds of dogs. Have the design team do variations with different colors and sayings. Have them give you the final product in various dimensions that you can use on t-shirts, hoodies, coffee mugs, or any other product type that makes sense for the design. Building your requirements like this saves time and increases the production output you get from the service.
- Be courteous, friendly, and kind to your designers. They are working for you and sharing their talents. The design staff deserves your respect. Happy designers make better designs. Encourage them to take their time and let them know how much you appreciate them.
- Use simple and direct communication. All the designers I have worked with have spoken English very well, but realize they are likely from overseas and it’s not their native language. Save the $5 words for college essays.
- Layout your project requirements clearly. Use bullets and sub-bullets to describe your project. Think of it kind of like a checklist that they can use to deliver the exact type of design you want.
- Log in at least once a day to monitor progress on your projects. The service will also send you emails, so you could set up a notification on your cell phone to give you an alert when an email from Penji comes in.
- Allow the designers to run with their ideas. Keep an open mind and give the staff room to take some creative liberties with your projects. You might be pleasantly surprised with what they create.
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed this article and that it helps you with your internet business endeavors. If you use the code JPCASH15 you’ll receive 15% off your subscription. This is a referral code, and using our code will help support our site, as well as assist in keeping our content free and limited on ads.
SPECIAL BONUS: I don’t know how long I’ll be able to do this for, but at least for now, if you sign up for a Penji using JPCASH15 I’m going to offer you an exclusive bonus.
If you sign up with our code, I’m going to offer you a completely FREE 30-minute coaching call ($97 value) to help you get started on the right foot. Bring your questions about Penji, print-on-demand, or anything else internet business-related. No catch, no gimmicks, no pitch at the end… just a free coaching call to help you with your online entrepreneurship.
To claim your bonus, sign up with Penji using code JPCASH15 at checkout and forward your receipt to us at mail@jpcashflow.com
I’ll get back to you with some proposed times for our coaching call.
Thanks for reading!
Disclosure: Bear in mind the links in this post are referral links and if you go through them I will earn referral credit. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the referral incentive I receive from your interest. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to use something I recommend is completely up to you.
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