Businesses don’t always need a huge investment, a complete product line, or a perfectly developed plan to get started. Sometimes the smartest first step is simply finding out whether people actually want what you’re selling.
Every Other Thursday went from 20 hats to a multimillion dollar clothing brand by doing exactly that. Founder Ethan Glenn started small, followed real customer demand, and used each successful product to fund something slightly bigger.
Its growth shows how businesses can test an idea before making a major investment.
Start With the Simplest Version of an Idea
Every Other Thursday didn’t even begin as a clothing company. Glenn originally created it as an Instagram mood board where he shared vintage imagery and aesthetics he liked.
One summer, he made himself a hat with the Every Other Thursday name and started wearing it in his videos. When followers began asking where they could buy one, Glenn had his first signal that the idea could become a product.
Instead of immediately launching an entire clothing line, he made just 20 hats. They sold out within minutes. The small launch allowed Glenn to test whether online interest would actually turn into purchases before investing too heavily in the idea.
Let Real Demand Determine What Comes Next
Selling 20 hats didn’t mean every future product would automatically succeed, so Glenn continued expanding gradually.
Rather than jumping straight into clothing production which is complicated, he experimented with simple products that fit naturally into his lifestyle and aesthetic. One example was an ashtray that could appear in photos of his apartment. From there, Every Other Thursday gradually expanded into sweatshirts, pants, shirts, jackets, and other products.
Each successful release provided another signal that customers weren’t interested in just one hat. They were buying into the larger Every Other Thursday brand.
For businesses, one successful test shouldn’t justify investing in everything at once. Let customer behavior help determine what deserves investment next.
Use Small Wins to Fund Bigger Ones
Glenn says Every Other Thursday has never taken outside investment. Instead, each successful release helped pay for the next one.
The money from the first 20 hats funded 80 more hats. Revenue from those helped fund products like the ashtrays, and Glenn described the process as a snowball where each drop became larger than the one before it.
For roughly the first year and a half to two years, the brand relied heavily on exclusive drops. Sometimes its website had nothing available for months because its available money had already been reinvested into the next release. Glenn also used his marketing background to handle photography, video, editing, email, and website work himself, keeping early costs lower.
Eventually, those small wins helped turn 20 hats into what Shopify describes as a multimillion dollar apparel company with a physical New York store.
Main Takeaway
Every Other Thursday didn’t start by betting everything on a huge clothing collection. It started with 20 hats.
Those hats tested demand. That demand guided the next products. And the money from each successful release funded something bigger.
For businesses, the progression is simple, start with the smallest version of the idea, see what customers actually buy, and use those wins to grow gradually.
You don’t need to know how big an idea can become before starting. Sometimes you just need enough to find out whether customers want it.
