About Goodjoe
good joe noun: a warm-hearted, good-natured person.
Goodjoe is a community-based t-shirt company with a passion for doing good. We are a few friends from college that share the vision of running a fun and sustainable business to help professional and amateur artists alike get their inspirational messages out to the public. We use the t-shirt as our basic medium to inspire people to do "good" and reach out to others to do the same.
Our Mission
We strive to empower and creatively inspire individuals to contribute to our local and global communities.
What We're All About
We at Goodjoe want to inspire everyone, especially future generations, to be more socially and environmentally motivated. We believe that everyone can be motivated to do good and share in our passion.
Every individual that buys a shirt, votes for a design, or nominates a nonprofit organization, is an inspiration to us to continue toward our goal to improve the world in which we live.
We host an ongoing t-shirt design contest and a weekly themed contest. Everyone is welcome to submit designs that have a positive, inspirational, or humorous message.
Every Monday, Goodjoe staff selects the winners.
The winning designer receives:
· $500 USD
· 6% royalty per product sold
· $100 store credit
Every month, we run a Design for a Greater Good contest based on the mission statement of a nonprofit organization. At the end of the contest, the nonprofit selects the winning design and
earns up to 50% of proceeds from each t-shirt sold.
Our goal for the Design for a Greater Good series is to create exposure and provide a sustainable fund raising avenue for nonprofit organizations that have limited resources.
Who We Are
Nathan
I left Vietnam and came to the States in 1992 with my mom, dad, and younger sister. I graduated from UC Davis in 2003 with a BS in Computer Science and Engineering. It wasn't until June of my junior year that I realized programming was not for me. However, I decided to finish what I had already started. One of the best things that came out of that decision was meeting Jourdan, which lead to goodjoe.com.
After college, I worked for 3 different Taiwanese hi-tech companies in a Sales and Marketing position. During that time I have seen enough of both the good and bad side of corporate politics, which I don't want to be drowning in for the rest of my life. Along the journey, I made some very good friends and found myself a mentor, a true goodjoe as well. This is another reason why I really believe something good can always come out of a disaster.
Jourdan
You probably guessed it, but I also graduated from UC Davis with a BS degree in Computer Science and Engineering the same year as Nathan. We had a few classes in common which
usually meant "sharing" my work with him ;-) After graduating, I continued my passion for programming as a Software Developer at Kintera Inc., later acquired by Blackbaud, where I
built exciting web-based fundraising and eCommerce tools, which enabled Nonprofit Organizations to manage their constituents and fundraising events online. I learned a tremendous
amount from my fellow co-workers and good
friends, and in the back of my mind always felt a great deal of satisfaction knowing that the work we were doing would ultimately affect the lives of millions
of people around the world.
Some time in late 2007, Nathan excitedly IM'd me with his idea. It takes a lot to convince me of something, but this time I was instantly hooked on goodjoe. I was looking to make a
change in my life and the timing couldn't have been better. It took more work than I had ever imagined, but with the help of friends and family, we've overcome many hurdles along the
way and are proud to bring you goodjoe. There's a lot more planned for the site so stay tuned for updates. If there's a feature you'd like to see implemented, be sure to send it to
us and we'll see if we can fit it into our crazy schedule.
Warren
I've been fascinated with computers since I received my first PC as a gift when I was 11 and have surrounded myself with the latest PC hardware ever since. And still to this day, I have retained most of my curiosity with a growing emphasis on the latest web application trends. It was this passion that drove me through the difficult days of my college career at UCDavis where I first met Nathan -- the founder of Goodjoe. Funny enough, even up to this day I do not recall how exactly Nathan found and reached out to me after years of lost contact. After hearing him out on what he has planned for Goodjoe, I could not count myself out as his mission statement closely resonates with what I believe in. What can you go wrong with doing good? And with that in mind, I am elated to lend a helping hand in establishing the initial groundwork to a sound, flexible and scalable backend.
Jamie
I've been an artist since I could pick up a crayon, and have spent the majority of my life working in graphic arts. I always just like to say, "I draw things." And I do. A few years ago, while I was working as a freelance graphic designer, I discovered the art of t-shirt design. I love it. There's nothing more satisfying than coming up with art that people want to wear on their chests. That's when I discovered Goodjoe. I loved their mission statement right from the beginning and knew that I wanted to work with them. T-Shirts? Saving the world? Joining up with them is like being a fashion design superhero. And since Goodjoe is made up of such great nice guys, they really do need my snark once in awhile. Just to balance them out.
