Why do so many people "chicken out" when it comes to launching their own brand? I know I did for many years. It as out of fear of failure. Now I know better.

Information on branding used to be a very well-kept secret. After the Internet was founded, the cat was let out of the bag.

If you are planning to outsource, that is, let a manufacturer and/or dropshipper handle it all and you simply put your pretty face and name on the label, get ready to spend a little money, keep up a website, advertise it, promote it, blog it, and every other nifty tool you can handle.

You may be an artist and think you have nothing to offer but art. Nothing could be further from the truth. Image licensing, though a relatively uknown business in the U.S. is one of the biggest with about 50 billion dollars changing hands each year.

You can do it yourself, you can go to a local manufacturer or screenprinter, or you can find a manufacturer online who makes your kind of product and will private label it for you. I did all three.

Rich or not, full of resources or just a kitchen table and great dreams and ideas, you still have the right to quality control. After five stores and four of them successes, I was ready to open RickLondonWear. The problem was, Cafe Press was experiencing growing pains and I didn't feel they could produce the quality at the time. I went to a Denver-based company called Printfection who still manufacturers and drop ships my RickLondonWear line. It doesn't cost me a penny except to promote it. Of course they get the lion's share of the take, but they really do most the work. I can live with that.

Another incentive to purchase the product, and it is a big one, is that I decided to offer engraving on the cups with the senders company name and URL for only $2 instead of the $10-20 that it often costs. This makes for a most unique and personal corporate gift for several reasons. The first is, one has to ask oneself, what is one of the first thing someone sees when they wake up in the morning (besides the irritating alarm clock)? Their favorite coffee cup. And trust me, with the right artwork or cartoon, it soon becomes a favorite.

And then I added personalization for only $2. I could have charged a lot more for this engraving but the volume makes up for the difference. Corporate gifts are big business, and to find a unique corporate gfit, I mean very unique, is not the easiest thing in the world. The buyer gets his/her company name and URL on any of the items in the Superstore.

This may sound a bit manipulative, and I agree, in a way it is. But it is also providing a product and service that people want, and an ideal way for a company to personally get their name to the right party. And it works and it works very well (is the feedback we get).

If not for the Internet, who knows if I could have done all these projects, all branded under my name Londons Times Cartoons, RickLondonwear, LTSuperstore, RickLondonCollection and others. Maybe on a much smaller scale, but in my rural hometown of Hattiesburg, Ms, the laughter market was slim. A dream, some energy, and taking action. That's the key. See you at the top.