Community Highlights: Meet Kofa Muse of Merched Out

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kofa Muse.

Hi Kofa, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
It all started in 2017 when I started working on designs for my own personal brand @NebNine because I was a music artist. I did what most people did starting off, you go downtown, find blank shirts and find a vendor to print them. I am a genius with creativity but as for making music, I had the wrong intent with it and it flustered my creativity pretty much. I sucked, lol 😂. As I questioned my own artistry because I was around great artists like @y2heru @stbohdi @the8AE @derek206 @keskross @mrjameskaye @trevcase @Therealsymba and too many others to name. A friend and roommate of mine Trev Case had a friend of his chucky come over with none other than NBA superstar Karl Towns. As a hobby, KAT wanted to work on music with Trev Case, @cAmmeekins, @bllaine and @jinluv. When I met Karl, he said he liked my merch and asked who made it. I said I did and laced him Up with some free items. That was my first subconscious sign I was onto something. The 2nd sign was when Karl had Quentin Miller come to my house the next day to help him with songs and Quentin had said the same thing about my brand after seeing me wearing a shirt. Unfortunately, I was out of stock on the merch to give him anything. However, I took mental notes. That was my second sign.

As I’m continuing to struggle with forcing music me showing up to the studio wearing my brand was leading to people asking “who made my merch”?, opposed to “I want to buy your merch”. Since I was commonly asked who made my merch as a friend, I began helping people I knew with connecting them to the merch manufacturers. Then I met someone who introduced me to @nani. Nani reached out about a friend needing merch and I was like, it’s 12 am, lol. What do you need? She advised me a friend of hers needed one shirt and she needed it by 6 am. In my head, I was like bruh I’m not getting out of bed to make one shirt so I assumed me saying a high price would get her to tell me no thanks. As I text Nani, what I believed to be an outrageously unreasonable and for context, think a triple-digit number. I anxiously awaited the no thank you 😊 text. To my surprise I got “What’s your venmo”? I was like, ohhh my gosh! I went downtown called my print guy and met him at the shop to knock out one shirt which was a pusha T-shirt. I thought hmmm random. I make the shirt bag it up and drop it off. The next day around 8pm, my phone is going off with notifications. Come to find out the pusha T-shirt I made was for Mallory Edens who was beefing with drake during the NBA playoffs. She wore the shirt to the game and went with Aaron Rogers so it went viral. I made hella money not from pusha T but just from the exposure that generated traffic to me. I was so in awe I was thinking damn, I made more money from merch than music and I actually love making merch.

In that moment, I stumbled across a video on Instagram where it told a story about a guy who was telling people from the east coast and Midwest to move to California because there was gold in SF and when the people arrived, he was selling jeans and shovels to everyone. His name just happens to be Levi and I. Levis jeans. In that moment, it clicked the goldmine for Levi wasn’t to dig in the earth and Pray he’d find gold. His gold mind was selling the tools needed for everyone else to hopefully find gold. I correlated that with merch I don’t need to try and hop in a saturated lane, everyone in La moves here to find gold as an artist, dancer, actor, model, have a business, etc. I decided I would help all these aspiring artists with the development and manufacturing of their brands and that would be my gold mine. In doing that, I provide something everyone needs. The more I’ve learned, the more changes I make to my business model. I hire employees now to help deliver merchandise to artists. I’ve become an experimental marketing agency so my company can be the merch vendors and merch table operators for artists on tour. One thing about growing up without much is I’ve always worked hard and made nothing out of something. The power of creativity allows you to make anything happen and the universe will continue to help you when you put in the spiritual and physical work.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The merch game has its months of ups and downs. Every client is different and can be difficult. I’ve given people the benefit of the doubt by working on consignment and then never get paid. It’s all lessons learned at the end of the day. I have my moments where I’ve lacked communication. It’s business; the one thing I’ve learned is my passion and love for this keeps me doing this.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Merched Out?
I provide merchandise manufacturing. That includes DTG, embroidery, screen printing, heat transfer, posters, stickers, skateboard decks, marijuana packaging, logos and graphic design, creative direction, marketing strategy and experimental marketing brand ambassadors. I have what I call the M.O.B merched out baddies like (wild’n out girls) that drop off merch to clients or run merch tables for artists and I have merched out bosses that carry heavier merch during delivery and work merch tables for artist as well. What can I say I’m the neighborhood merch dealer.

Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
I would say be creative, educate yourself, love what you’re doing and all the success becomes a bi-product of loving what you’re doing. Most importantly set goals for yourself daily/monthly, re-invest in yourself, get your paperwork in order with your business and learn to delegate things you need help with. (accountants, taxes whatever you need help with)

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: merchedout.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/Nflkofa
• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/merched.out.7
• Youtube: https://youtu.be/SNsXMNdep_o