Bonfire Forest Hill
Photo courtesy Bonfire
For Brian Marks, a business was born from a bust.
Marks, a Virginia Commonwealth University alumnus, had “Save Shaka” shirts printed up in 2011 as a way to boost the school’s athletic department and to help the school retain the services of its men’s basketball coach, Shaka Smart, who had led the team to its first and only Final Four appearance in the NCAA Tournament that year. The Rams didn’t win the tournament, Smart received a contract extension (and remained until early 2015), and Marks was left with a lot of unsold shirts.
The situation sparked an idea that led Marks to the 2013 founding of Bonfire, an online platform that allows customers to sell and design custom T-shirts and other items, including apparel for fundraisers, eliminating upfront production costs and unsold inventory.
Shirts can be sold and designed via Bonfire’s website. The company manages payments, order fulfillment and customer service for the seller. There are options for personal, nonprofit and political fundraising.
Bonfire also offers a line of Richmond neighborhood shirts from its in-house design team. There are 28 designs, including Shockoe Bottom, Jackson Ward and Ginter Park, priced from $20 to $36. “It’s a fun way for us to try out some design ideas that we like,” says Kevin Penney, Bonfire’s chief marketing officer.
Bonfire says it’s a fundraising service that takes the stress off sellers so they can focus on their cause. “Our mission is to strengthen and inspire communities with high-quality custom apparel,” Penney says. “By reducing risks in selling apparel online, we hope to put money back in the pockets of our sellers to invest into the causes and communities they care about.”
