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Despite their differing political views, both Kraus and Blackney used bootstrapping techniques to hatch their political business ventures.

For Kraus, the startup was part of a long creative process including a couple of misstarts, a lot of perusing of underground T-shirt offerings on line and then a semi-mystic vision of his first product.

"It's been evolving over the course of the last three years but I guess it really started in earnest about a year ago," he said.

He explains that process in somewhat veiled terms on his website:

The BHC was spawned from the ashes of an ill-fated fashion project started in the gnarled hills of Northern California. In its aftermath we befriended a mountain lion and a herd of goats, passing our time foraging for mountain berries. After saying farewell to our friends, we retreated east for a long contemplative winter. Dreamlike visions soon came upon us, urging us to cleverly subvert the political t-shirt.

Above: Submitted photo of Kraus hawking his wares in NYC

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