Two Ohio State alumni are looking to join the market for Ohio-centric and personalized apparel.

Business partners Ansh Khare and Jaimin Gandhi launched their company, Double O Threads, five months ago. The company produces custom orders, along with a line of original pieces. The name represents the two Os in Ohio. Both co-owners are from Ohio and said they want to keep the state as the focus of their company.

“We really wanted to showcase the pride from where we’re from,” said Gandhi, who is from  Columbus.

Khare, who is from Dayton, added that the clothing has a simple, vintage look and showcases the different qualities of Ohio cities, including Columbus, Akron, Cleveland, Dayton, Toledo and Cincinnati.

We have different types of design structures in place. All of the designs for the retail shirts center around various Ohio-related things such as the cities, texts, sports teams, et cetera,” Khare said.

Khare and Gandhi graduated from OSU in 2015, Khare in finance and Gandhi in economics and philosophy. Both are now analysts at JPMorgan Chase, but wanted to fill their free time with a more creative activity.

The duo got the idea for the business after being involved in dance organizations on campus and seeing a need for custom merchandise orders for those types of groups. Both were captains of Buckeye Mela and Khare was in OSU Genesis while Gandhi was on the Buckeye Bhangra dance team.

“We noticed that apparel needs are very important for both dance teams and dance competitions, so we realized that we could serve those needs with cheaper apparel than what we found when we were involved with student organizations,” Khare said.

He added that their custom designs focus on each competition or team individually.

“For an order we are doing for a Minnesota competition, we included the Minneapolis skyline on the shirt with a dancer and the various participating teams’ names. All competitions want to showcase their lineup, but outside of that, every design is unique,” Khare said.

A sampling of Double O Threads' shirts. Credit: Ariana Bernard | Station Manager

A sampling of Double O Threads’ shirts. Credit: Ariana Bernard | Station Manager

The co-founders of Double O Threads say that although prices of their merchandise do differ based on the quantity ordered and color scheme, their lower prices are what set them apart from their competitors.  

Gandhi added their retail T-shirts and sweatshirts range from $20 to $40, depending on the design and make of the merchandise.

“We want to go on the lower end of retail … we realized that a lot of the margins that other companies are doing are really high to where they are kind of overcharging for things,” Gandhi said.

According to the new entrepreneurs, communication and transparency are key when trying to begin a successful business.

“When we were on different organizations here at the university, a vendor would tell us one thing and then say, ‘We’re sorry we have to charge you a little bit more,’ but we aren’t about that. We get every bit of information we can and we tell (customers) we’ll get them a quote in 24 to 48 hours and we make sure we stay true to that,” Gandhi said.

Double O has worked with multiple organizations on campus, including Buckeye Fusion, an all-female competitive South Asian dance team at OSU. Deepti Hossain, captain and a second-year in journalism and strategic communication, said Double O Thread’s service was “on point”  and she would recommend it to other organizations on campus.

“Ansh was very prompt in answering our questions and incredibly helpful,” Hossain said. “We were ordering fan gear for our team and all we had to do was send him the photo of what we wanted on our T-shirt. Then, he sent us a picture of what the shirt would look like. The price was so affordable. It arrived within three weeks, and they looked exactly how we wanted it to.”

The co-owners said a lot of what they learned in college has helped them while running their new business, especially time-management skills.

“College really helped with that because you have a social life and then you want to keep your grades up but also do some extracurricular activities on the side,” Gandhi said. “So time management is really key and it carries over even after you graduate college.”

As far as future goals, the duo said there are “no big long-term plans.”

“We want to use our creative minds more, but no timeline of where we see ourselves years from now, we just want to have fun,” Gandhi said.
Customers can place orders and access the online store via doubleothreads.com.