From music school collapse to a brand doing €10K a month

Before Rocktops, Colin spent 17 years building one of Leiden’s best-known music schools. Then everything changed.

In 2023, several freelance teachers left the business and took their students with them. Around 60% of revenue disappeared almost overnight. The business Colin had built from nothing, the one that had defined his professional life for nearly two decades, collapsed under him.

I went from top of the world to completely crashing down.

What followed was two years of trying things that didn’t fit. Dropshipping. Online courses. Chasing “winning products” he didn’t believe in, for customers he didn’t know. None of it worked. More importantly, none of it felt right.

With dropshipping, I sold things I didn’t even understand. I didn’t stand behind the product.

That changed when he discovered print-on-demand. For the first time, he could combine creativity, nostalgia, design, and storytelling into something that actually meant something. And that became Rocktops.

How one shirt sold immediately and what that proved about the market

Rocktops sells nostalgic Dutch apparel inspired by childhood TV shows, music, and pop culture from the pre-social-media era. The audience is highly specific: Dutch Generation X buyers, primarily aged 45 and above.The first design sold immediately after launch. Designs inspired by classic Dutch childhood characters and TV moments. Ome Willem, Bassie en Adriaan both began converting through Facebook ads from day one.

People connect emotionally to it. It takes them back to that period before social media, sitting in front of the TV with your friends.

What Colin discovered, and what makes Rocktops operationally interesting, is how much the creative execution matters. Pairing the right nostalgic music underneath the video dramatically improved conversion rates.

The music brings people straight back in time. You hear it and you’re already there.

Today, Rocktops customers regularly buy multiple shirts per order. 600+ designs are now live on Shopify. Every customer, every order, and every data point belongs to Rocktops — not a marketplace.

I’ve never personally bought eight shirts at once in my life. But people do it because it triggers something emotional.

Why Colin chose brand ownership over Etsy, and a real partner over incumbent options

Colin understood early what Etsy would mean for his brand. He chose not to go there.

If you’re on Etsy, you’re not Rocktops, you’re Etsy. The customer is theirs. The data is theirs. I want my own customers.

He looked at other platforms for fulfilment. It works, up to a point. But it is expensive, impersonal, and gave him nothing beyond a dashboard. When something went wrong, there was no one to call.For a first-time Shopify operator building a brand alone, at 56, after losing everything, a ticket system is not enough. Colin needed guidance, someone who understood his business, and someone he could actually speak to.

What a real partnership felt like on day one

The relationship started with a post on Instagram or Facebook and what followed was a conversation with Mathijs Eefting - the Founder/ CEO of Mayzing, followed by an introduction to James (Colin’s Merchant Growth Partner at Mayzing), and then something that felt genuinely different from anything else Colin had tried.

Mayzing was a breath of fresh air.

James became a real point of contact. Not a support inbox. Not a knowledge base. Someone who knows Rocktops, knows the products, knows the challenges, and stays involved.

With James, I have direct contact. There is communication, there is thinking along with me, and there is someone I can actually talk to.

Over 5,000 orders later, the things Colin cites most readily aren’t platform features. They’re moments: the call where they went through the data together, the product samples that arrived in the post, the unexpected €500 year-end bonus he had no idea was coming.

James is geweldig. Amazing vind ik. Ik ben echt blij dat jullie hebt aangesproken. (James is amazing. Truly amazing. I’m really glad I reached out to you.)

From first order to full-time income in under 12 months

Within roughly a year of launching, Rocktops sold over 5,000 items. Revenue reached approximately €10,000 per month. The business fully replaced Colin’s previous career.

I do this full-time now. Full throttle.

And critically: Colin genuinely enjoys building it. Every order still gets a reaction. That distinction matters, for two years he chased dropshipping products he had no connection to. Rocktops is different.

This makes me happy. I work until six or seven in the morning sometimes because I enjoy it. I stand behind my product 100%. I know what I sell.

99%+ local EU fulfilment, and why the remaining 1% is what drives the partnership

Most Rocktops customers are based in the Netherlands, where delivery expectations are high. Since launching with Mayzing, the vast majority of orders have been produced and fulfilled locally within Europe with faster delivery, lower cost and stronger customer experience. Typical EU delivery time is under five days.

In Colin’s Shopify store, customer ratings sit around 4.5 out of 5. Most reviews praise both the product quality and the delivery speed.

But the most revealing part of the fulfilment story isn’t the 99%+ that is produced locally. It’s what happens with the exceptions. A small number of orders (roughly 20 to 30 out of 5,000+) encountered stock or routing issues where specific colours had to be sourced from the US instead of Europe, creating additional shipping and import costs of around €20 per order.

For many platforms, a 99%+ local fulfilment rate simply becomes a marketing statistic. For Mayzing, it became a problem to solve.

How a real feedback loop beats a ticket system

The clearest signal that Rocktops and Mayzing have a real partnership rather than a vendor relationship, is that Colin raises problems directly, and expects them to be solved.

He flags delayed shipments. He asks about print quality options comparing DTG and DTF. He proposes new product categories — including a detailed idea for printed boxer shorts after identifying a gap in the Dutch market. He challenges the team when something isn’t working. None of that happens on a self-serve platform.

That contact gives you something to hold on to. If things go wrong, you know there is someone there.

For solo operators building businesses without a team, without investors, and without anyone to call at 6am, that kind of relationship is not a nice-to-have. It’s what keeps the business going when things get hard.

What’s next: New markets, new products, and this is just the beginning

Rocktops continues expanding its catalogue, refining apparel blanks, and testing new production methods. Colin is already thinking about the American market and has plans for future product categories.

This is my new direction. After all those years this is it.

After years of frustration trying to force generic ecommerce models, Colin found a business that combines creativity, emotional storytelling, and real customer connection. And with Mayzing handling the fulfilment infrastructure behind him, he can focus entirely on the part he actually enjoys: building the brand.