Local father and 10-year-old son create t-shirt for The Woodlands

THE WOODLANDS, Texas — Local 10-year-old Cody Peters began his foray into entrepreneurial business after being inspired by his business-savvy father and the sensational television show, Shark Tank.

Cody’s father, Tim Peters, is an entrepreneur himself and has now created three businesses. As Cody got older, Tim said the two of them dedicated their evenings to watching Shark Tank together. Their ritual of watching the show and his father’s own entrepreneurial interests finally made its mark on Cody, and he decided that he wanted to start his own business.

Tim took the opportunity to use Cody’s developing interest to teach him a few basic business principles and impart his own entrepreneurial knowledge to his son. After asking him several questions, Cody came up with the idea to start a golf club company.

“I like to play, and I thought people could use lighter clubs because you can hit the ball farther so you can get more distance and more speed on your swing,” Cody said.

Tim used Cody’s idea to teach him about the cost of goods sold, product research and development, manufacturing and brand competition. Once Cody realized what it would cost to start a golf club business, he quickly decided that he wouldn’t take that route just yet.

The magic of Disney soon provided Cody and Tim with an answer. On a family trip to Disney World, Tim noticed people who had never met each other striking up conversations over city or sports themed t-shirts. Cody then asked if The Woodlands had an official shirt, and a new business endeavor was born.

After their return from Disney World, Cody’s business idea shifted from a topic of casual household conversation to a full-fledged family project. Tim used his own entrepreneurial expertise and hired a graphic designer to create several versions of the t-shirt. Once the designs were finished, Tim and Cody sent a survey to friends and family to see which shirts would be best-sellers, and two kelly green shirts were chosen as the official, final products.

Woodlands Shirts was given its official website for potential customers to make their purchases, and Cody’s mother, Meagan Peters, took to Facebook and created a page for the new company. The first round of shirts just recently arrived on their doorstep, and they’re excited to see their product floating around their hometown.

“We’re starting to get some orders coming in, so we’re pretty pumped about that,” Tim said. “Now that we have the actual, physical shirt, one of the things that Cody is excited about is going to local events and setting up a little booth and walking around neighborhoods and selling the shirts door-to-door. That’s where—beyond his idea—that he’ll really be stepping in and doing a lot of the hustle and bustle of selling t-shirts.”

The excitement of Cody’s idea coming into fruition reveals the discovery that starting a business from scratch is not easy. In fact, Cody said that it is one of the most difficult things on earth. In addition to learning the difficulties of the business world, Tim said there are many deeper life lessons that he hopes his son and daughters, Carly and Campbell, are learning through starting Woodlands Shirts.

“I think one of the lessons that I hope that they do learn or they may already be in the process of learning is if you have an idea and you believe in it then do it, and if you say you’re going to do it then do it,” Tim said. “Around here we really can’t stand inaction, and hopefully that will go through all different areas of life from homework to friendships to business.”

Meagan said beyond seeing the fruits of their labor, she wants her kids to understand that money isn’t everything, and she hopes they learn to look beyond the potential greed that sometimes accompanies financial reward.

“I want [Cody] to see the reward of his work, but I also want him to learn through that giving and giving back to others, and it’s not just a greedy thing to make as much money as we can, but it’s also finding ways for him to be able to give some of that back,” Meagan said. “We’ve kind of played around with some ideas with friends in need and children and our church and just some different things for us to give with some of our profit.”

One program they hope to develop with their profit in the future is what Tim called a “Kid-preneur” program that engages parents and their children in the business world and gives them a platform for their own ideas. Tim said sometimes parents get locked in a cultural box and believe that the only way to have a strong relationship with your child is to be the coach of all the sports they play.

“It’s more finding out what they enjoy doing and just do it with them,” Tim said. “It just happened to be that we both liked the idea of starting a business, so we knew we could do it together, which was always pretty cool.”

What began as a father-son project quickly trickled down to the rest of the family. Carly and Campbell, who are only seven and six years old, have made their own lists of friends they want to buy the shirts.

“It’s something we daily think about and talk about as a family, so it’s a fun way to bring us together,” Meagan said.

Beyond another business venture and bonding opportunity for the father and son duo, Tim and Cody just wanted to show how much they love The Woodlands. Tim and his family agreed that they couldn’t imagine themselves leaving.

“Part of the reason we did this is because we truly love The Woodlands. It’s hard to come by what we have here,” Tim said. “We want to be in support of The Woodlands, so we wanted to make sure we did a good job of representing the professionalism and the culture of The Woodlands in the shirt that we created.”

Order your shirt soon to have it delivered in time for Christmas. Purchases can be made at the Woodlands Shirts’ website.