Prota apparel: overcoming setbacks to deliver a comfortable message

By Avonlea Brown

On October 24, the third and final Integrated Business Core team launched their business: Prota Apparel. The next day, they had their first tabling event, and later recorded impressive first-week sales of over $1,000. 

The Integrated Business Core is a year-long course for any students interested in learning what it takes to start and run a business. They form teams, come up with a product and business plan, go through a loan proposal process and launch their businesses in the fall. For some groups, the process is smooth from start to finish;for others it teaches lessons in how to reorient and start over. 

Prota Apparel is the result of three IBC teams merging. Originally, Kristen Finsaas, a junior Finance major, wanted to run a water bottle company; another team had the idea for a hat company; and Simon Thiessen, a junior Economics major, wanted to produce  sweatshirts with his team. Within the first few weeks, the three teams decided to merge and focus their attention on one product. 

“It was just me and another guy at the time,”Thiessen said. “So we’ve been kind of throwing some ideas around there. So we had come up with the initial branding and then the others came in and we all kind of changed it to make it more fit. What we wanted to do as a more cohesive and larger team.”

Finsaas is now CEO of Prota Apparel and Thiessen is the COO. They oversee a team of seven students who make up the business. 

“The one disadvantage of having a larger team is just trying to be cohesive,” Thiessen said. “So that’s been a huge challenge, especially for us on the management side of things.” 

Despite the countless setbacks it faced, Prota Apparel launched with the goal of spreading the gospel through a message of love. “Prota” comes from the Greek word for “first” and is centered on John 4:19:

“We love because he first loved us.”

Currently, Prota Apparel sells only two items: a crewneck sweatshirt and a t-shirt. On the products are the words “First Loved. Now Loving,” representing the verse and the mission of Prota Apparel: to “share the message of God’s love through every purchase, striving to create a community focused on sharing our dependence on Christ.” Both products are made of high-quality, organic cotton material that feels soft and comfortable to wear in any situation. 

“We want to appeal to as many people as possible,” Thiessen said. “But for apparel brands to really work, they have to offer something a little new and different, which is really hard because it’s a really saturated market.”

Part of the IBC is that the proceeds of the business go towards a charity of the group’s choice. The Prota Apparel group decided on Witness Ministries, an organization focused on sharing the gospel in rural communities of Bangladesh. 

As far as future goals, Finsaas and Thiessen plan to move their efforts more toward marketing by building their online presence. Whether or not they become a business outside of the IBC, like some successful businesses have, is still in conversation.

“There is an option, as an IBC group, we can continue and be our own company apart from the IBC and from Cedarville, so I’m not completely sure where our team stands on that yet,” Finsaas said. “But I know that there are some people in our team who want to continue on.” 

The team at Prota Apparel hopes to make strides in marketing and accumulating online sales while also conducting market research. Future plans aside, Prota Apparel overcame multiple setbacks to deliver the gospel to people on campus in a comfortable, wearable form. 

Prota Apparel will have a table in the lower SSC this Friday. 

For more information about Prota Apparel visit their website at: protaibc.square.site 

Follow Prota Apparel @prota_apparel

Avonlea Brown is a senior Broadcasting, Digital Media, and Journalism major and editor of Campus News for Cedars. She likes reading, traveling and learning new things.

*photos provided by Kristen Finsaas