Juggling school, homework, sports, and his own business, senior Jack Rasmussen has his hands full as a student entrepreneur. Rasmussen has his own clothing line, ‘Parallel Presence,’ which launched in March 2022, and since then, he has gained heavy notoriety around West and in the surrounding community. Rasmussen started off by selling t-shirts with custom sayings on the front and his logo on the back. The design that put him on the map is Rasmussen’s catchphrase, “Invest In Yourself.”

“It's been over a year now, including all planning I started last March officially,” he said. “There was about six months of planning that went into it beforehand.”

Rasmussen needed to initially find the passion to work for his goals before spreading his message.

“I wanted to inspire people, as you’ve seen I've had multiple sayings on the front of the shirts,” he said. “I really just wanted to spread a good message because there's a lot of hate in the world today.”

The symbolism in Rasmussen’s logo is the foundation of his entire business.

“If you look in my logo, there are parallel lines,” he said. “They stand for the good and bad in your life. I believe that the key to happiness is being able to balance those and keep it parallel.”

While Rasmussen remains positive, there were times when it wasn’t so easy.

“Finding a good design people would like and actually buy was the hardest part because I’d have a design, but it wouldn't be cool enough,” he said.

Rasmussen wanted his clothing to inspire and motivate everyone.

“Coming up with a saying that would fit everybody was a challenge,” he said. “There's a lot of sayings that would only pertain to a selective amount of people, so I'd just find a lot more generic ones or things that anyone could use.”

Aside from the style of each piece of clothing, Rasmussen faced other roadblocks that slowed success.

“Anytime you try to better yourself, people tend to hate on you,” he said. “There's always been people that are like ‘that's not going to work out, you should do this instead’ or ‘your ideas are not going to work’. There's a lot of people doubting me.”

Despite the uncertainty of his business, Rasmussen plans to work even harder.

“Right now I’m thinking about expanding more, and I’m leaning towards women's clothing,” he said, “but it's kind of difficult because my supplier doesn’t really have pinks or even neutral colors.”

The clothing production process requires many parts and tools past the initial finalized designing.

“So to start, I needed a heat press, a cricket machine to cut vinyl, a printer, a lot of different colored vinyls, a vinyl cutting tool set, and a space for all these,” Rasmussen said. “I took over my dad's basement.”

Rasmussen acknowledges the importance of a great support system on his road to success.

“My parents have been super proud of me along the way and they help me a lot, even down to research,” he said. “They’re very supportive.”

Rasmussen’s business has grown tremendously, both in sales and emotional aspect.

“When I have major drops it gets pretty tedious with how much work I have, but it’s just all part of it,” he said. “I love every moment of it, so it's more of a hobby than a job at this point.”

Rasmussen accredits his start to the many business intros offered at West and branching out from there.

“I’ve taken intro to business, marketing essentials, entrepreneurship, and I'm starting business foundations this semester,” he said. “I’d say I've learned a few things from each of those classes, and they’ve definitely helped me. But I've learned the most from researching on my own.”

Before ‘Parallel Presence’, Rasmussen dabbled in other self-employed jobs early on that prepared him for more hardships in starting his own business.

“I’ve had little businesses where I go door to door and do lawn care or shovel snow,” he said.

Motivation defeats procrastination, something that Rasmussen has experienced firsthand.

“Just do it,” he said. “Get the plan down on paper and do it because procrastination is what kills, and I've learned that with starting other little businesses too. You just have to go out and do it.”

Taking risks is nothing new for the young CEO, and he doesn’t plan to stop anytime soon.

“Right now I want to start dropshipping, that's a big thing I’ve been researching,” he said. “My main goal for this year is probably getting a website because then I can move towards getting online sales from debit and credit cards. That’s a lot easier and more efficient for me.”

After the success of his business, Rasmussen plans to use his knowledge to take things a few steps further.

“Even farther in the future I probably want to lean more towards real estate,” he said. “I just love homes. I think it’d be fun to sell them, to be honest.”

Before he can accomplish this, Rasmussen plans to attend college at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater where he will major in marketing.

“I have really bad senioritis right now, and I’m just ready for the next step of my life,” he said. “I really want to get things going with starting other businesses whether that be real estate or maybe expanding my t-shirt business, I don't know yet. I’m definitely looking forward to improving my education at Whitewater because they have a really good program for me.”

Rasmussen wants his fellow aspiring entrepreneurs to remember a powerful piece of advice.

“Chase your dreams because the price of regret is pricier than that of failure,” he said.

By Makenna Freund

Published January 30, 2023

Oshkosh West Index Volume 119 Issue 4

Senior Spotlight: Rasmussen leverages basement design work to entrepreneurial success