Starting a business that succeeds is rare. In fact, around 20% of businesses fail after operating for a single year, 30% fail after two years, and nearly half fail after five years. Young solopreneur Jaffry Jan Mallari seemed to be going down the path of joining the ranks of the Fallen Ones. However, he figured out how to turn what was becoming a failure into something that became incredibly successful.
Jaffry started his first brand, named NGHTPRWL, at the age of 18. His original inspiration was seeing someone in his high school selling hats for $40 a pop. He saw how many people at his school were buying those hats and felt inspired to sell hats himself, but at half the price. He used a service called Printful that let him print streetwear products on-demand. He uploaded his designs and started growing his inventory. While he sold a few products within the first few weeks of launching, things petered out after that.
Nobody was buying anything anymore. This was devastating to him, considering he spent what was a lot of money to him at the time. He also put a tremendous amount of time and effort into seemingly nothing.
This is the moment where most people shut down their operations and move onto something else in life. Jaffry closed down his brand as well. However, the spark of his streetwear business stayed lit.
Although it was the end of an era, and a pretty disappointing one for him, it was a learning experience that he will never forget.
There were those who provided him with words of encouragement. However, criticism lurked between their long pauses. Others mocked him more openly for trying to copy someone else’s ideas, as if selling hats was some novel concept. Some even swindled him to get free hats (we’re looking at you, influencers), while then criticizing him and his brand behind his back. Jaffry will never forget all of that.
However, there was a silver lining to all of this. This marked the beginning of something truly special that he didn’t even realize was there. It was lying dormant within the deeper recesses of his mind, until it was ready to resurface once again.
NGHTPRWLR was no more, but RESURGENCE arose to take its place. This rebranding came with it everything Jaffry had learned over the few years before its debut. Armed with these minor successes and major failures, he crafted a winning strategy that has led him to start selling hundreds of products within the first hour of promoting RESURGENCE. This showed him that he was now doing something right. He figured out what his mistakes were and turned his brand into a six-figure moneymaker.
You can check out Jaffry’s new and improved streetwear brand here. If you love streetwear apparel with militaristic and pessimistic undertones, you’re going to love RESURGENCE. You can also follow this brand on Instagram here.
