Man Makes $83,000 a Year for Getting Dressed

One 26-year-old man had a smart business idea: wear a different t-shirt every day, and get people to pay him to do it.

By Kathryn Hawkins. Posted on December 01 2009

Image: iStockphoto

$83,000 a year is a pretty decent living for most people. To make that kind of money, you generally need to have a fancy degree, or you’ve worked your way up the corporate ladder for years. But not Jason Sadler: all he needs to do is wear a different T-shirt every day.

No, Sadler isn’t a male model. He’s just an ordinary 26-year-old from Florida, who had a very simple, but very smart, idea a year ago. He decided to sell his torso as marketing space for advertisers by wearing a different company’s T-shirt every day, photographing himself in the shirt, filming a video, and blogging about it on his website. His price for wearing the shirts varies day by day, starting at $1 for January 1st and going up to $365 for December 31st.

As word spread about Sadler’s stunt, advertisers began to take notice—and he sold every T-shirt spot for 2009, making $66,795 from T-shirt ad sales, with another $18,000 in revenue from website ad sales. In 2010, he’s doubling the stakes by employing another T-shirt wearer on the West Coast, and doubling the price.

In a time when so many people are being laid off by big companies and struggling to find their feet, it’s refreshing to hear about an entrepreneur finding success based on such a simple, yet unique, idea. There may not be room for too many competitors in his field—but how’s the baseball cap advertising market looking these days?

Filed under: Business, Weird,

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