The number 10 is important in the lives of Tara and Brad Johns, who are current graduate students in North Central College’s LEV program. The husband and wife team have been together four years, and took this number into account when formulating their business Tenzy, launching early May. Tenzy is a custom T-shirt company that works with a different non-profit organization every 10 days, donating 10 dollars for every T-shirt sold.
“It began with the concept of tithing,” Tara explained. “Then we thought what’s better than donating ten percent, ten dollars.” The Johns said, “T-shirts are a good way to raise awareness for a cause.” The business evolved from there. Tenzy plans to be able to work with a non-profit every 10 days due to extensive reaching out. The Johns plan to start locally and move outward with the organizations they work with.
The Johns give a lot of credit to Professor Hanlon, Coleman Foundation professor of entrepreneurship and associate professor of management and marketing, with whom they are taking a small business entrepreneurship class with. Associate professor of marketing, Mary Galvan, has also assisted the business, as five students are working on interviewing approximately 200 people for the project.
Details on this were revealed on April 7; Johns said “we are currently reaching out to non-profits.” Some non-profits they have past experience with include the West Suburban Food Pantry and the Naperville Humane Society. According to Johns there is a possibility that Tenzy will eventually move into other products, such as prints and posters. The T-shirts Tenzy makes will be limited edition, similar to a concert T-shirt, so it is easy to see the natural transition from T-shirt to poster.
North Central works with several non-profits and has breakaway service trips as well, upon mentioning this; the Johns’ entertained the idea of working with North Central students who work with non-profits. Johns says “Starting a business is difficult,” and that “some days are great, but some days you struggle.”
One of the hardest parts Johns says, is dealing with unknowns. A major unknown that is essential to the beliefs and ethics of their business is that all Tenzy products will be made in America. The Johns mentioned that larger corporations such as Nike have been guilty of using overseas labor which in some cases involves children. This labor is very cheap which made it a tough and ethical decision for the Johns. Right now on their website there is a Tenzy branded T-shirt with a theme that looks like a design baseball with a wavy abrupt underline to the text on the shirt.
“We didn’t want to participate in that,” the Johns said. As a business that assists non-profits they felt it would be detrimental if they didn’t know how their products were being made. It has made it more difficult for the John’s to launch their business, as they were originally launching sooner than May but had to prolong it for various reasons, which is understandable for a new business.
