After 23 years building his business, the co-founder of Creative Apparel Concepts decided to step away and start over. Follow along on Jeff Gray’s entrepreneurial journey.

Whenever my family went on long road trips, within an hour, the kids would start asking that eternal question: are we there yet? I’m feeling the same way about my startup, RoboArt Labs. Our initial deadline to launch an AI art platform with print-on-demand services was September 1, 2023. It’s now the end of March, 2024. We are seven months past our initial deadline. So, every week during a touch base with our developers, I’ve been asking: are we there yet?

I’m not a tech guy—my entire career has been in apparel—but I’m learning that tech is even more different from the apparel world than I expected. When you’re creating large apparel programs for major retailers, you want to wow the customer with outstanding design and service. If you miss a ship date, orders could be cancelled or you could get major chargebacks. My developers were unfazed by missed deadlines, and the look didn’t seem to be their priority.

I threw a tantrum before the holidays and demanded this first iteration of our site be completed by Dec. 15, 2023 which was agreed to by the developers I had hired. Well, that ship sailed, and here we are.

We were supposed to debut an online a holiday store showing off our AI art platform, where anyone, including my great Aunt Edna, could come to the site, create outstanding art and print it on shirts, hats, blankets, and the like. We missed the important holiday season, but I have to stay focused on the bigger vision.

I believe that most people tend to judge a book by its cover, so to speak, and I really want that wow factor. So, I made the decision to part ways with my developers and find a new tech team that can help me complete my vision. This time, I am creating a much more detailed scope of work and a detailed list of features want. I also just hired a creative director to raise the bar on our user experience.

At this point, we are about 50% over budget. It’s been a year since I left my job to start this venture, and I’m feeling the financial pressure. But I also understand now that when you are creating something new, especially with tech, you can run into puzzles, hurdles, and problems you have to solve. I truly believe we are building something unique. I’ve used this waiting period to pitch the concept to e-commerce retailers, licensors, and investors as well as spending time networking, networking, and more networking. I’m constantly reading, to stay up on AI developments.

This is a marathon, and I’m trying to take one step at a time. We’re finally on schedule to begin Beta testing in the next few weeks.