24 Years Old - $2M Shop: Meet Ian Scherber

[Music] good afternoon print hustlers we are here we've got a very special guest again with us Ian sure burr from Duluth Minnesota all of the loose screen printing you're repping it right on the right pocket yeah I like it first of all Ian thank you so much for be able to join us no problems pleasure I love being able to obviously reach out with me any and talk to people that are involved with the print tousle themselves and also you know I'm speaking with you on a great product you have like we love it so it's an honor thank you thank you I really appreciate that first you're a young guy how old are you right now 24 I feel even weird saying that just because I'm only 29 but at the same time I mean you know you're you're just coming out pretty fresh too so you're running the print shop though first of all just tell us about the shop like what is it right now so do the screen printing up in Duluth we started four years ago our semi started or restarted however you know we want to say that now going to explain that but you know we founded on the ideals that t-shirt you know is really meant to be a t-shirt so everything that we print on we stand behind and we're using the best blanks that we can just like every other guy in the industry but we found that there's a huge hole in the market in Duluth with customer service but also providing something that actually lasts and that was a big goal so we set up shop four years ago and we've been kicking out product ever since we went from a workhorse that I bought and again I'll probably get into that whole story to an automatic workhorse to two automatics to a big-boy automatic and then a few manuals and a rapid tech vinyl machines embroidery everything else to follow so it's been fun I would happily goes over to the shop so we have a this summer of you open up a retail store and combined with the retail store our customer service center down there and the manufacturing facility were just around the 19:19 employee mark 12 full timers and then in between there is just people for the retail store and some some sales reps and some other stuff like that so yeah it's been awesome it's crazy 19 people and rough revenue for this year I guess or last year rough revenue I say so when we started out you know first year we hit the 300,000 mark which is super fun and now we're looking at just getting over that two million dollar mark between Duluth screen printing and our and our new Rito so-called flagship so it's a really fun thing and we love it wait wait last year was 300,000 this year's just over first year we started which have been 2015 reporting revenue of like 300k last year we just cleared the million mark and then this year we're pretty much gonna double it Oh got it that's awesome that's huge growth especially going from one to two in a year yeah it's I'm gonna definitely want to dive into that one as well so first going back you know you're 24 years old most people are coming out of school at around 21 22 so what first of all how did this get started I think a lot of people are just gonna ask how do you get money to even buy you know an automatic press but before that let's just go back to the beginning how did you get involved in screen printing yeah pretty simple and this goes into a huge lifestyle story that you know I tell just out of fun so I was 13 years old and I was pretty much going into I think it was high school at that time so going into high school 13 years old football practice and I was basically leaving one day and I remember the coach you know saying something about needing some t-shirts for a rivalry football game and you said at once and I didn't even pick up on it and I ended up leaving that day and I knew that I needed a job right like every every kid you know I'm going into high school I wanted to find a job for some extra cash I ended up asking the one of the librarians at the high school just that day he was out in the parking lot and I saw him and I asked him hey you know you looking for any work because I knew that his brother owned a hardware store in town so he made a phone call and he basically set up a little interview with me and the gentleman down at the hardware store which his name is Lee I went down there on my bike not even the car at the time and I pull in and least kind of sit in the parking lot and super long story short he's looking at me and the job was moving lumber for you know the rest of the fall and I'm 13 years old 120 pounds and he he pretty much knew right there that it wasn't gonna work but as we're talking like this you know similar conversation face to face I'm noticing left and right over his shoulder that he's got a few guys unloading some equipment and I kind of just asked him the question and this is when the stars kind of aligned but you know he brushed it off oh yeah just some screen printing equipment you know Craigslist mistake what have you and you know he explained that it was custom t-shirt equipment you know he said yeah it's just you know silkscreen press and you know this this and this and I was well that's really cool so it makes wait he's he accidentally bought squid or he owned it was trying to sell it he is so he was unloading it into his facility and he's a big option guy I think he got it through like a big auction and he buys a bunch of tools so sounds like it was just one of those things that he found online and thought he could get into and it was also in a bundle of like some other equipment ways you said at 13 though you were looking for a job is it because you wanted to buy something or you know what was the motivation between yelling the work on so you know the booths Minnesota the Iron Range it's not as super well you know high income area everybody kind of struggles a little bit and everybody's gotta I guess a chip on their shoulder in I grew up and just didn't have a lot of money at you know four brothers my mom and dad struggled to you know find good-paying jobs that they could consistently keep and you know my backgrounds it's kind of borne a little bit of alcoholism like I'm sure many other people but they struggled to keep their jobs and a lot of the one of those normal day everyday tasks became a little more difficult and with with some financial help it was easier a lot of that stuff fell unto me and my older brothers and then me for my younger brothers too so a lot of the drives you yeah you know one of the job was based out of just doing better for your brothers and taking care of their family yeah that's awesome yeah thank you so just to zip it back in but I met Leah and he because yep this is screen printing equipment I don't have a job for you here 120 pounds I'll see you later I left next day a football again the coach is looking for shirts and I piped up and I was like yeah I can I can do it I can make you some t-shirts and I was again you know freshmen on the football team shouldn't have been talking to the head coach and I was and he's like alright well you know get me a quote I guess so I'll go home you know fake quote looking up what custom makes you know selling merch for and this is 2009 basically going in 2009 and looking up some stuff and and a three color print Gildan beefy t like for 75 apiece for 200 shirts just given um conscious yeah kind of a sweet little deal and you know I slide him the piece of paper and he kind of chuckles a little bit and signs off on it and he's like alright so I took that piece of paper basically a purchase order walk down to the hardware store and talk to Lee it was like hey man I think we can make this work and he just had that that big grin like you know turn this kid away and he comes back two days later with a purchase order for 200 t-shirts and from there it was a did you write that did you print out a blanket voice or something or just running a speaker it was like you know I googled like fake purchase order or quote and yeah any online thing I could find I filled in all the information just so that I could sign off on it and it looks semi-legit right yeah I was pretty funny so I hustled that and he said to the guy with the equipment right back to the guy with the equipment and he accepted it and that's sort of really cool relationship where I was going in freshman year and I you know was involved in some sports and Proctor is kind of known for not having Proctor high school or what is known for not having a bunch of school spirit so at least at that time there just wasn't a major apparel provider or that small town embroidery or silkscreen shop so for us it worked really well because I was able to get in as freshmen and start creating you know school and spirit wear for my peers for the sports organizations how much was the equipment what was it four more four four by four workhorse and just a four foot chamber dryer and that was really it it's all we little buddy or a little money basically yeah yeah what about didn't it come with like a booth and like a washout booth all this stuff was just basically he kept it at Edna's facility and I just worked with them through basic it through high schools what I'm getting at and he added at this little facility and he had enough stuff to to make it work and it was it was a pretty good setup because he's a pretty handy guy you know there are store owners and they're entrepreneurs themselves and they found ways to make everything work and it was uh it was a really great experience for me when it comes to printing just because I wasn't using horrible equipment where it was extremely frustrating but I also wasn't using top-notch stuff so I learned a lot how did you learn about the screen printing piece did you show yours just YouTube YouTube because he's gone you know yes Craigslist mistakes it makes custom t-shirts and I I'm like I can sell these I already did it I got a YouTube how this work so I've been off second knowledge research it's like cats Pippin right in videos right the traditional way of doing it so those guys are on YouTube and I have no idea how this stuff works and they're providing a great little insight as to how the whole system of screen printing can be built and it was really cool I learned a lot but then through the himself yeah so through him I learned a bunch and it was really cool and that was for three years three years four years kind of did you end up printing that job for two t-shirts yeah it was a super dusty facility and they were just white t-shirts and it was probably like a great experience but also you know if you dropped a shirt you're losing you know a few bucks so they were happy we got the order fulfilled and I learned a lot from it but I remember like just our spacing on our registration we designed something that had like you know eighth inch or maybe even a quarter of an inch spacing between the colors just so that we didn't have to have super tight registration just kind of get alert it was really cool but I spent my time I proctored high school for the next three years just developing those accounts and working with the school and working with the organizations that I was a part of and this is super funny but LIVESTRONG was big at the time and I ended up basically copying an I t-shirt to an epitome of what Nike would be in its procter rails and mascots a rails which is train it's a railroading community and basically took the Nike symbol and and remade it into a train and then instead of it saying Live Strong real strong did this little thing just to make some some cash basically I was going to school selling it to friends the school loved it they put it in the library started selling a bunch of apparel and they end up like adopt EA adopting real strong as the school motto and they end up paying me like five grand just to love you it's just crazy like this crazy cool little experience that I had a window when did they buy or what did they buy that for me two years after I left school who put out five grand but the school did the school is like basically the Board of Directors at the school because they're like well how does this all play into who owns and who generated this idea it was a little wishy-washy because this is a six year old term that I kind of coined and developed and knocked off whatever you want to say the school I'm loving in and I think it has felt they felt like they didn't own it outright and I never said anything to him but they contacted me and we're just like hey you know we're looking at getting rid of this and this would've been like my the end of my freshman year in college kind of going back to back home is when I kind of got the the meeting with those guys to discuss just dish that off so it's kind of fun how did you so were you still printing in school or just during this summer like a college or so yeah so take you through high school really quick I printed all school long loved it at night in between hockey games and baseball games whenever I had time to go print I would early in the morning late at night anytime Princip all summer long and then it's senior year and I'm basically I want to have a little bit of fun but I'm making really good money doing the printing and I wasn't up in the air I sniff I was gonna go to college I'm just because I you know a lot of my peers didn't go to school afterwards and everybody just kind of got into the labor force and I didn't know what I wanted to do so I actually went and I brought a pack and this is just really really funny and I'll try to circle around back on it but I brought like a packet of basically all the purchase orders all my sales all my accounts to a local screenwriter in town and I asked for a job because I didn't know if I was gonna go to college in that night I said hey I graduated in May and I'm looking for a full-time job in sales and I'm you know seventeen and these guys wouldn't even open up this book of customers and at the time it was probably worth 85 to $100,000 and just you know in accounts you know which isn't a ton but it's of course a lot and every customer counts you could talk to talk to and it's probably not a large city you know really tapping yeah and then and that's kind of where it was really interesting is they just didn't see the value in it and incubate time of day and I can tell you right now we're kind of a big thorn of those guys the sides in town these days so it's kind of are they still in business yeah there's still the big dogs in town one of their main sales reps is the guy that I actually met with when I was 18 and it's just kind of a funny funny communication thing that I have with him whenever I see him and we kind of chat about that so it's fun that's funny men instead of going to work did you go to college or what yeah so I I was loving the business stuff and screen printing really allowed me to fall in love with design actually printing and then talking to people I didn't really realize how much that actually loves just customer service and communicating with people and seeing how they can take a product or an idea and actually you know provide it to them so I had a blast doing it and that opened the door as you know for college to be a possibility just because I didn't really know so I took off to st. John's University which is just two hours south of Duluth in central Minnesota and I took off and started my track to an entrepreneurial minor and then a global business major so I also thought I was done screen printing you know I thought about it for a long time and I was like hey this was super fun but you know I'm gonna go to college and Allen I'm gonna take off and go study and this is so funny but I ended up getting to school and it's maybe two and a half weeks in and I'm sitting at my desk just like this you know typing away on homework and I get an email and the schools like hey you know you owe $90,000 in tuition and I turned to my roommate and I'm like Sam like it says I owe money to go like to go to school and I was just so clueless as to how the whole system worked in you know he's laughing he's like yeah like you gotta give a loan I was like no I don't get it like don't they just like Bill you or like attach it to your social security number when you leave here he's like no like you gotta pay that I'm completely oblivious to the whole situation and not two seconds later a guy knocks on the door and I open it up and it's a senior who's just trying to sell t-shirts right he's trying to sell the t-shirts to a party and the shirt and I like 24 beer cans on it and he's like oh yeah man it's 20 bucks apiece you gotta buy it to get into all the parties and I just looked at the shirt and I knew my background and instantly my wheels were turning and it's like I'm not gonna buy that right and it's all so ridiculous mm just yeah yeah he's trying to sell you know he's trying to sell these t-shirts and if you you know if you're 18 years old on a college campus and you're cross no beer cans on your shirt you're gonna get in trouble right this is dead indicator that you've been drinking so I ended up developing with my roommate at the time just a regular comfort colors pocket tee and on the pocket was like a few beer cans and then I had a little bikini top draped over the top that we made up and had this funny little saying that was just like case day 20 whatever 2012-2013 show me your cans so then we printed on the inside of this shirt looked at all the cans and it was a hit and it was super funny and I almost got kicked out of a Catholic college and paid for my tuition in cash all the same week so it was kind of a crazy little ordeal holy God so did you print that shirt yeah we ended up just ordering like ordering screens online getting them like pre burned with Ryan at sent over a desktop press and just basically rifling out the shirts in the dorm room you still have that press we actually and this is super funny but right after that I was like well we got a cert southern and stuff out we had a lot of demand and we can tell we could make money on all these little you know these little parties events that are happening at school like homecoming and stuff so we sold all that equipment and I actually went and started working with the local like on campus screen printing shop called the T spot and it was a student ran organization and it still exists today but when I got to school the T spot wasn't using their equipment they started out about five six years ago before that and then over time you know it as anybody can imagine I'm sure everybody can relate to this but over time you know students just weren't picking up on screen printing and it was hard to pass it on after they were trained in so the whole idea of students running them their own print shop just fell apart because there was no external professor or teacher or instructor that was actually helping them do it it was just those guys and and and in a house so it was this old house on campus filled with screen printing equipment I got to school and knew how to print so we started up the presses and sort of printing stuff again Superfund wait so going through school and I'm assuming you're building up more and more sales and you know cuz everybody especially in college campus with the clubs or as Asians the college itself the sports teams yeah everybody needs merch everybody's Merckx so we were doing whatever we could obviously find little holes and continue to you know provide apparel to any organization on campus but you how did you market on campus more like flyers or it was a small enough school where everybody knew who was who was printing the t-shirts and you rather getting them from one guy or a different guy it was it was two of us on campus that we're doing it and the better shirt would always win so we just did our best to create cool stuff that people loved and we'd make our money on those big like the big homecoming shirts where we sell you know three four thousand t-shirts and then anytime a you know organization on campus wanted wanted merch we'd meet up with them and print it and the tea spot still exists today and they still do that and I helped them for about I think a year and a half maybe two years just printing and working there and then I actually ended up meeting my my girlfriend there she's now my wife so it's kind of a little low story that starts to happen there too so she applied to be like the family she applied to be like a graphic designer and I was on the board of hiring and I heard yeah so after it's way too late we're graduating though did you go full-time at the business or like when did Duluth screen-printing kind of start after that yeah so we and so Mary and I started dating probably six months after she started working there and you know we both wanted to start an outdoor clothing company we both wanted to start sewing like heavy duty canvas backpacks and luxury goods and were in a city right now with a company called Duluth pack and frost River and those guys are you know some of the best wax canvas heavy-duty backpack manufacturers in the world and I was really inspired from them coming from Duluth and I wanted to do in a different way so Mary and I started a company called never asked leaving the tea spot and serving on business and we started manufacturing backpacks out of recycled or reclaimed materials so stuff like used use leather that MIT might have like scars on it where you know they wouldn't click it out and use it as a piece instead they'd throw it away you know we'd find that leather and we call our manufacturer and they ship us you know all this stuff that's technically defaulted but it just has a really cool story so our goal was to start selling backpacks that all together had a lot of really cool materials and told a really unique story do you still do that now so super crazy we and this is kind of you know getting into your question as to how to do screen printing and everything got started Mary and I ran the business for two and a half years and we hit like seventy thousand dollars in revenue over like three months and I looked at her and I was like hey we got it we have a year and a half left school I think we should drop up I think I should drop up take this full-time like this is our opportunity to make something really cool and she looked at me and is basically if we drop out you know you're not gonna have a future with me so the ultimatum kept me in school and we basically did our best to continue you Manufacturing products but she was so kind enough to come up with an idea to how we could get out of school early and pursue the business full-time and that was through a study abroad trip that we had we would would have had to do in summer and this is when everything starts to just absolutely snowball and stuff gets crazy so it is now May of 2015 and it's May 1st and the school has just notified me that all the Neverest equipments the back of the bag making company all the sewing machines leather clickers all that stuff had to be removed off campus and it couldn't be stored there because we were a for-profit company on campus so they told me I had to get rid of all of it and move it away for the summer and it wasn't two-three hours later that the student that was in charge of running the tea spot at that time I decided that they are gonna sell all of their equipment they're no longer gonna do it in-house they're gonna outsource everything and they want to sell all of their stuff so they called me and asked me if I would sell it and just find it you know find a buyer sell it I knew some people in the industry of course and they'd give me like 10% on the equipment you know it's worth 20 grand I make 2,000 bucks I'm gonna go to Europe with meri we're gonna study abroad and then you know when we come back we'll basically be done with school sure so the tea spot you know that conversation continues and I line up a buyer we show up at the shipping container we open it up and half the stuffs missing buyer gets cold feet and walks away you know we're basically sitting there and the stolen or was it even include it was basically what happened is like I said it was in this old house and the school demolish the house and they had to get rid of all the stuff and when the school went in to do that they descended up throwing a bunch of the stuff away I think they had on on a in a document they had like 82 gallons of ink unused unopened I remember just seeing him like a massive value you know to this guy and they had to a workhorse quartz dryer that was eight feet long a six six manual of iMac desktop just a bunch of really great equipment a vinyl cutter you I mean it was basically a little print shop right it was a great little setup but half the stuff was missing the guy got cold feet and I had 4000 bucks in my pocket that I was taking to the bank to pay for our flights and I basically are down deposit for studying abroad and I turned and just said hey I can give you 4,000 bucks right now for all the stuff and that person said yes and that student basically accepted the 4000 bucks and I got a full print job it was probably worth about 40 thousand when it was all said and done and there was some things missing but nothing astronomical to where they should have decreased the value to have that first guy walk away stuff to to house area to retail spot so I had to go back to you know go back to Mary and basically tell her that I just spent all her money on screen printing equipment and now we have to move a full screen printing shop and all of our manufacturing equipment for Neverest off of campus and we leave in 15 days and she looked at me and is like we don't have any money I bought that flight I'm getting on it you're either with me or not if you want a future I'll see you on the plane so that motivated me and obviously everything else that was going on to get the wheels turning and I hopped on Craigslist found a place back home in Duluth I knew I'd have friends up here that could help me through the summer if I need to help and they ended up driving all this stuff up moving everything in setting up shop Mary got up here she started cranking up bags for never arrests so we had you know some some product to fulfill what we were gone because we obviously couldn't even Katinas so up canvas leather goods you know it's impossible so she was making inventory and then hiring a gentleman today who was one of my best friends from high school who still is probably our hardest worker his name is Wes and he's still with this today ended up hiring him and trading him in and he learned the whole process in about ten days and I took off for Europe and studied abroad Mary and I left and when we came back you know he was manufacturing the bags he was trained in on everything to be honest and he was training film it Mary made most of the product so he didn't have to fulfill the bags and Wes was basically doing the screen printing what were you selling these bags so they were all on our website basically and then we had I mean we have an Instagram of I think right around 7,000 people that were fall on us at the time we did first base website that's cool it was it was awesome it was really cool it's a great experience but is it still up online actually sell in the business to get an automatic screen printing press four she felt relieved believe it or not you know she wasn't sewing anymore and like I said that's that's more of the love story that I can I'll get into but it was just kind of this crazy crazy experience and yeah long story short I took off we took off together we went and studied abroad and we came back business was doing great and I ended up buying I took an SEO class like sophomore year of college and I bought a bunch of domain names to boost screen printing was one of them and I was just so surprised that it you know wasn't taken and Duluth itself carries a really strong rich name to it especially throat you're from the Midwest or maybe even just the Minnesota in general it's really rich in in just hardwork manufacturing mining it's a big freshwater port it's a really cool City and and and that name carries a lot of strength and weight to it and I knew right away that was you know the brand that I wanted to so when you were selling these bags were they'll so you talked about you know 7,000 Instagram followers you had a Squarespace site were you guys selling them to friends first were you guys doing some advertising for it you know how are you selling the bags so mq4 long story short we we launched a Kickstarter campaign like I said that was our first boost you wanted to raise 15,000 bucks and the whole goal was to buy enough time and money so that we could graduate with some funds to really get the the business rolling with that Kickstarter that was mainly friends and family but the first initial push on Kickstarter was probably three or four thousand dollars in that first day and kicks and puts the top page and you know gravity to this and so so you created a assuming a video for that and that goes up and then what did people get when they donated like it was that gradual yeah gradual stuff so we had a good like a small item was a t-shirt right so I think it was like 25 bucks and you had custom printed t-shirt that had a sweet saying on it and then thing was like a woman's tote at 60 bucks next thing from there was a just a really basic backpack and then duffle bags and bigger backpacks after that for like the $200 mark and then he had stuff like you know a thousand bucks and you could create and design your own product and then we would make it for you and we'd work with you through that process we ended up having three people do that my favorite one just to go off on a tangent here my favorite one was a old really old sale that this guy you had on a sailboat for 20 years or something like that it was in his garage and and he just wanted to you know have it used in his life again because it was a big memory for him so he sent us the sale and we sent him back a really cool backpack and it's one of the favorite products and it was a really cool experience for us yeah so how many backpack seat were you guys did you guys sell total yeah I'd say so in in toll-like I mean I guess revenue I don't know total backpacks but in total in the two-and-a-half years that we really put into Neverest we probably just clipped over like the 250,000 dollar mark in revenue that's the decision though to sell it what did it sell for like how much did you sell it for and how'd you find a buyer yeah so super interesting we got back from Europe we had six months left of school we basically drove back and forth from campus to print t-shirts for doing the screen printing and you know make bags for never a so Mary and I are driving two and a half hours to make stuff on the weekends driving back home even sometimes at weeknights and we graduated in December moved back up in in January and it was crickets as you know I mean I didn't understand what a what a slow season was for a startup entrepreneur or just being in business yeah so I picked a weird time and I didn't get one email or a phone call for three months and it was just completely it was reality you know and it really kind of just brought me into a point in which I I really understood the market a little bit better and I started doing outreach and I started getting better at networking and at that same time you know not a lot of people were purchasing backpacks so immediately in January do you think that was from because you said that sales slowed down after you moved are you after you finish college right we finished college it was January 2016 so crickets right like I mean we just live it we live in a pretty cold climate I mean it was probably zero degrees out for 65 days dude that happened the January before no so in the January before we just we weren't and this is kind of interesting but January before I was mainly doing the backpacks you know I didn't really have a massive start on Duluth screen printing so there wasn't a huge I didn't have the knowledge that that was gonna happen you know slow cz one's gonna hit I was just still I was going to school you know wasn't used to it shows out now it's full-time it's like you know it's hit the road you know every day we show up at work and it's meri and I and we got a it was a 1500 square foot facility and everything was there and they were just closing emails nothing was coming in I didn't know enough to go out and call you know cold call people I just did my best to stay positive and continue to already do emails and set up meetings and just hustle you know that was my biggest goal but we live in a big a big hockey culture up here and I was just really surprised that we were picking up any of those orders and you know when we were you I'm sorry this is the screen printing side not the okay the back okay - yeah so the backpacks had really quick you wanted to be able to sell it right so you decide hey we want to sell this business and just focus on the screen printing how did you find a buyer for that super simple I mean it was a few trade shows really so with never us being an American made product I went to a few trade shows and pop-up booths where we had the merchandise and we were meeting with customers and people that would want to stock our our products and we had one gentleman that was interested out of Tacoma Washington and then we had one gentleman that was interested out in Maine basically I told those guys you know after that slow season in January of 2016 March hit and Duluth screen-printing took off we were busy non-stop for six seven months straight to the point where we were printing 16-hour days and Mary was exhausted and I was exhausted and we couldn't sew bags anymore you know the cost of a product for just our cost I was like 62 bucks 63 bucks so carrying that inventory was really difficult in finding wholesalers was really difficult so DSP was taken off in skyrocketing and you know we could tell that it was really taking a lot of our time and never s kept you know the market stay the same and weren't making enough money on it we did one last are the focus on both throws expensive yeah super super expensive and so this guy he talked with the show yeah I said hey do you wanna just buy right yes a lot of questions you know how did you get into it what's going on what are your problems and and here's the ticket he owns a manufacturing facility where they pump out products for a bunch of different companies and I told him that was our issue that was his strength so he's like I see the opportunity here we can capitalize on your Instagram and you know your outreach and stuff so they end up purchasing the rights to sell the backpacks and the branding for just under 13,000 bucks you know it was basically what I had into a few loans and I just wanted to move the company for what it was worth and I thought it was a great deal it was a huge success to me because DSP was just absolutely blowing up and we were getting orders left and right and we just didn't have the time for neveress anymore and it made a lot of sense so we use that money to buy an automatic press pretty much ready we got a freedom expert from work force six eight we had a super small shop so looking at different presses it was the best fit and the flash back units at the time were a really interesting idea that I never saw you know I never saw in person but I was like I get it right if you can have this be a full six color press it makes a lot of sense and I think the you know the square foot the on the on the press was like it's like eight foot you know nine or something it's just super small so you could fit it anywhere so you hired wes is the first person who wants to do her is the first couple people in the shop yeah so we hired West and then we hired a few for never us we heard a few seamstresses and stuff and then when we sold that we basically converted those people into production I was basically super busy just answering emails that talking to people on the phone left and right and Wes was doing a good job with and I would help you print and Mary would also help prints then right after that I ended up getting an intern and this is kind of my he's our space be my VP in the whole in the in the company his name's Kyle Farrar he's a he's an awesome guy he's from England he went to school st. Scholastica which isn't which is in Duluth and we got him signed on as an intern and through friends basically I was at a networking event and I gave a presentation and kind of told my story and one of his buddies was there and they connected us and Kyle came in one day and and just talked to me and I basically told my was like if you want to you want to work here I need an intern answered these emails it's all I said because I was super busy and running behind and I needed the prints and shirts it's like if you can you know formulate some great answers and look at what I what I usually say and you can answer some emails you got a job here so he did that he's done an amazing job ever since and that's he's been with us for just over two years doing that exact same thing so so going back to the hiring the first few people so you know Wes was managing or was printing it sounds like right and then the first few people the other people were also either what printing or counting in or shipping just like everything production focus yep so you had three people on production you know - Marian yourself in front who was doing the artwork and this is I mean this is just so funny to even like think back on and did be completely honest it was like no no one was doing artwork we didn't provide mock-ups to our customers we barely could learn Photoshop to get it onto screens like it was I have no idea how we even got by I just look at it back I look back now and I I laugh because people were so I know they were so trusting in us doing a good job and maybe they just they want to give us a shot but we just had no artwork there was nothing it was it was crazy so we always would just we'd sell out artwork to other people other people family and friends we would require them to have artwork and then we would use like a dealer we could do two bare minimums absolutely bootstraps like no investment no one was doing it no interns yeah it was absolutely crazy if you could go back with what you know now you know you're roughly - money which is an awesome size you got a great team if you could go back to when you know it's the three of you just really starting to focus on screen printing and starting to take off back in March again what would you have told yourself then to either save time or money or just you know do things better I think I would have taken out a small loan in in some equipment and I probably would have got a an exposure unit that burned you know just expose the screens quicker I think our exposure times were at like 12 minutes back then and it was like kind of a cold and dungeon II place you know save some money if I would have had the heavy knowledge taking over alone to get something that was going to be under a minute you know go led that's what I was saying so we just I spent you know days sometimes just burning screens for you know the whole weekend burning screens for the whole week it was just crazy so yeah yeah many shop owners when they ask that to they always say hey actually which is a step further it's just a directive screaming there you go yeah but that's interesting what about like one crucial hire that really helps you out I think it would probably be Kyle you know that getting an intern in and I say this because the way that we went about training in Thailand and hiring Kyle has really been a standard as to how I've slowly brought people in I believe in leaders I believe in hiring leaders I believe in hiring the best talent that I can and I let those guys know that you know they're in it with me and it's more of a co-op when it comes to this business and if everybody does well and everybody takes care of the business it'll take care of them and we really preached that with Kyle on day one and just letting him know that hey you know you're an intern now but if you continue to do great things you're gonna you're gonna have a full time job when you graduate and man that was our goal and we took him through a lot of you know he learned how to print first right so he was he was on the floor for two and a half three weeks where we were just give him you know associated with inks and different screen meshes to talk to customers about I mean the whole nine yards vocabulary stuff just so that he could understand what was going on sure and we still do that today when we get somebody in new they start on productions they gotta they gotta clean screens for two weeks usually which is just kind of a funny thing but the new hires start at the bottom and we slowly you know train them in on the print the printing side and then if if it fits and they love it they stay and if there was already a planned role for them elsewhere they'll leave at that point so Kyle was the big hire just because he allowed me to do better job with printing and manufacturing and also do some more outreach so I was able to think our customers more get out the community more and really start to grow doing screen print things brand and and awareness it's also it's so really so a role to really free you up based on the things that you're doing that I would dare to say you shouldn't be doing right it's like you're saying it right I need to be out there talking to people thanking people talking to customers you know bringing in sales but you were stuck you know an email you're stuck in the back you that's very cool you talked about going from 1 million to 2 million what grew the sales to that you know was there specific sales channels was there something you did was something you bought what was it you know I think getting over that million dollar mark we were well on our way to the two million if that's making any sense as far as like just where where things were clicking so right with manufacturing and we had everybody in their roles and everybody was doing such a great job of taking care of you know their role the best that they they possibly could and that really helped us do a better job with manufacturing altogether but I can tell you right now and you know this is my advice to anybody but we've built ourselves on speed simple stuff we print a lot of stuff for customers that are putting it on the shelves so they can sell it over the weekend and if they can't you know sell that faster we can't get orders faster so my goal was to in any way possible shorten up our hourly times you know 3 days 4 days 2 days at times just get stuff out as fast as possible so that our customers can sell it make and reorder what is your thought process in terms of speeds here turnaround time up is it something you bought or is it a roll is it a mindset what is help to you in that organization really stepping back and looking at your your shop and just figuring out where you can cut little corners here and and developing the things you know spending time on the things that take a long time to do and really making sure that those become more efficient I would say the biggest thing that helped us was having set printing teams you know we split the shop up now we're you know there might be three guys on one set of jobs and three guys and another set of jobs and just working in teams whether it's someone always catching pulling off putting on setting jobs up taking jobs down those teams and that teamwork I think has really helped because we then incentivize that inside the shop by you know offering lunch or just you know if that team prints the most that day they get points and they get you know $50 bonus on the next paycheck or something so if we just try to do fun things like that that really helped with the speed what's gonna happen same I'd say teamwork is really fun that's helped us we've also invested you know a lot of money into shop you know management systems obviously you guys read print Thabo providing us a great service where we can look at our schedule from two weeks out and see we can move up but also making sure that anything that's out on the floor is getting done correctly you know the mock-up systems the accuracy of actually seeing stuff out on the floor in real time for us as a sales role you know can it basically it just connects all the departments that's that's the biggest thing you know connecting all departments and having real time status this has been probably one of the biggest things for us to get stuff done quicker because we know we're so sat at all times that's really cool what what do you feel like is it the biggest challenge for you guys right now I took a step back for about two weeks and I took some time off just to really look at you know where I was really needed and where I could help and I think from a manufacturing standpoint you know we're kind of camping out right now to what we can do in a 12 hour you know shift basically so for us I think we we need some more equipment we need a we need to invest in some stuff that's gonna really speed up some processes that are taking us a long time direct to screen is something we're looking at obviously it's also sustainable in the long run and we just had so many issues with artwork like everybody probably talks about you know our darkroom is done it's a mess all the time and it's one of those things I just often gets put at the bottom and it's costing hundreds of dollars a day probably in time so that's one thing that I think we need to improve on but altogether I would say you know time right it's it's always comes down to time and I think training people and a little bit longer so that they can they can do a little bit better at their job is kind of our next thing so getting our staff trained up a little bit more I think it's gonna be huge and then just upgrading our equipment a little bit more to making sure stuffs quicken and all all fronts and this is very screen or you time I press wise to or we just blame we just picked up an eco and it's been an amazing the rocky go it's been amazing press for us it's a p14 I think is what we got right now yeah sounds right thanks and we just picked one up and it's it's been an amazing press we love it it's been hammering stuff out the set-up time on it has been really really quick we don't even use the pre registration system but it's just a it's a workhorse when it comes to crank and cell phones so we love the new rock we got a nice long dryer that complements it and we rip stuff on that all day long we're getting into the embroidery business right now is what else that's kind of a next big thing for revenue and just keeping customers on and you know I'd love to talk more with anybody in the industry about this but we've noticed that not providing the embroidery or even having you know somebody that we can recommend has really discouraged a lot of repeat business I think just from customers not you know entrusting Elson to be a one-stop shop obvious I'm looking for you to do it well they don't want to do piecemeal yeah yeah so getting into embroidery is gonna be used for that next stage of us in our growth and we just ordered one up and it's gonna be here in about two weeks so we're launching that in 2019 the DTG we picked up a brother 381 and it's been an amazing machine for us we don't even run the white on it we just use it for all you know full-color garments and we pitch our customers on running stuff on just like a Raglan or a Nash colored shirt or oatmeal or natural stain going white but still getting away with it so that they can hit you know a great vibrancy of color and yeah create a system that keeps our one to two color jobs that we just get all day long just absolutely on the presses so how has been managing the business I've been going you know with people finance accounting how do you do that do you have someone externally that they you lend us to or do you use QuickBooks or like what yeah so this all comes into the financing and talking about money you know it you ask me how this how does somebody acquire funds to run a shop and we bootstrap since day one just by you know long hours hustling like every entrepreneur does but immediately right away when I graduate school I knew that accounting and Finance was going to be it's my biggest weakness and the Entrepreneurship classes that I took you know a lot of the stuff that I took away from that was finding your strengths and running with them so I sought out an investor or a partner or somebody that I could you know rely on to do the accounting and also help with finances just because it was one of those things that I knew that if I if I had to put my time energy into it wouldn't go anywhere so I found an investor and I found a business partner he's still active today his name's Lucas he lives in Chicago he's actually Adam feelings football agent which is kind of a sweet little deal so we can cheer on the Vikings from afar and get some of their accounts - we print some of his merge which is really great well I found a guy week advice and he's the man he's been our basically a co-owner and a and an investor and he runs all our books and make sure that we when I want to do something he makes sure that the numbers check out so we can do it so it's amazing so when you first like right when you graduated you reached out to him first of all how did you find him through school st. John's the University itself has a really great networking okay just a networking community and I found him through the Entrepreneurship Center I've told them right away hey I'm looking for somebody that you know might be a CPA accountant and they're like oh yeah we got a few Johnny's you know we're at st. John's Johnny's and we got a few Johnny's that we'd recommend and he came up I met with them told him what I was looking at doing and he's like yeah I'd love to help so he was really cool easy he was I think he's 27 so he's pretty young all the finance money put in so obviously you had some cash saved up I'm sure to get going too if you were to go back and call when hey this is how much money would be good to have to really accelerate early on what would that number be you know at least have 10,000 bucks you know just from like an ordering standpoint of equipment you know so that's after equipment all said and done you got equipment in the shop you got everything there find a way to get 10,000 bucks in the bank just to make sure you're covering your bills you're paying yourself you have the ability to order when you rip through ten thousand dollars with the product in a single order with a with a big customer I would say that's pretty much the bare minimum that you got to have and you know for us we didn't have that cash we had it on a credit card you know so we had some some space that we would just use and we really bootstrapped it anywhere we could buy used equipment buy used ink buy you know lots of stuff off of ebay just to save a dime we did and we also you know like I said Mary and I printed for two years non-stop on the manual press at least 12 hours a day yeah bootstrapping it 10,000 bucks no no I'd say yeah just from going through the flow because it kind of reminds me of myself a bit but I stopped after college and you kept going which is awesome and just because I went on the software and but you know looking at the business now you talked about some of the challenges what keeps you up at night right now they know you're there either worried about or you saying hey we've got to work on this better yeah yeah and then you talk about the organization like getting faster and yeah and focusing on that but you know 9 to 5 is really all about the production and the business and making sure that we're getting stuff out the door when I come home and I'm thinking about our employees I really am you know we got 19 people and every single day it feels like that spiderweb of people that I'm in some way responsible for continues to grow you know and and it trickled out it trickles down from an employee we have to their family to everybody else beneath that and then it goes to guys like yourself that we you know have have services with you know people we we purchased equipment from you know so I think what keeps me up at night is just all the people that I'm constantly entangled with it sometimes ever feel like I'm always keeping up with them or or how do you make sure to keep them happy yeah I mean last hand this is a tip for any anybody who's in this situation I said when I took some time off I developed a new system to have one-on-one meetings at the end of every month I schedule one day I send out the schedules when we're meeting and for 20 minutes or 15 minutes or 1/2 hour I meet with everybody I talk to them about their goals the times every day like how often do you do that with them once a month ok yep and then we generate a nice little sheet with goals for them to work on next month they got any problems with me they can talk to me and we can address them and other questions what kind of questions do you ask them why are you here you know I think that's the one of the biggest things that I can ask those guys right away because I want them to always you know I always feel like they're there not just for a job or having money I wanted to feel like they're a part of the future of this company and and they see the opportunity that we have to give to grow and really do amazing things in the community and also just set up our ourselves to have a really great life how do you feel like you give ownership to someone who may be doing a very repetitive job right like the it can get a bit mundane right it's no secret that you know if you're running the manual press for fresh air you know hours and hours a day you may not feel like you're progressing but how do you think about that and how do you push that on your team - it's the little things of course right like picking up lunch here and there and just being you know being the best best you you can be you know I'm always trying to be an uplifting guy and walk out on the production floor and I'm trying to cheer you guys up and just keep them attitude light I let him listen to whatever music they want so they can jam out and have a good time buy him lunch when I can like I said often do you do the lunch thing I'd say it's probably once a week those guys ever once when all they get it two times a week and we also have a little policy to where you know we believe in business to business you know as the Eze do everybody else but if the guys want to go grab you know we printer a lot of breweries and a lot restaurants they wanna grab a meal there the owner say hi to people there and they bring me their receipt back I'll happily reimburse it just you know I I can't be everywhere yeah I can't be everywhere so if they want to go out there you know show a face and make sure that we're appreciative to they got a great idea for their business too yeah you know we send our sales reps or even just some of our main products you guys to places and no go have a beer and you know they'll be chatting with the bartender and all the sudden they'll come in with a stick you know and of an order that you know it's just it's just funny stuff like that so that's one way to do it but the retail store we open up a retail store in Canal Park and you know it's a really cool experience because it's live printing inside the store and it really brings together a bunch of artists necess or scald flagship but it's really for the employees you know it's one of those things that if the guys want to pick up extra hours they can go there on the weekends and print if they want to design something get it into the store they can do that so it's a really great thing for our artists and our graphic artists to keep those guys focused and feel like they're being rewarded and also having a great time because they have the ability to you know design something and bring it to an audience of a few thousand people at least coming through the store but well there's a decision of behind opening up their retail friends first as a warehouse just to stay lean there was it like you know brand or sell retail clothing or yeah in Duluth we have a wonderful tourist market that comes here all summer long I saw after three years of having a printing business the amount of shirts I can just pile up in a facility for miss orders and random stuff and it was probably it was probably $30,000 in inventory just sitting on the shelves from a few years of work some missed jobs here and there reorders miss orders you know a bunch of different stuff and that was a huge factor into it of us you know let's open up a retail store so we can unload some of these some of these garments that we have sitting around but a lot of it really was for the employees you know I just really wanted something special I wanted to do t-shirts differently because in our town there's just so many touristy shops and I just don't feel like it really encapsulate Saur embodies what Duluth is and really want people to come here and understand the risk the rich history and we do that I tell them telling stories through our t-shirts yeah awesome Ian thank you so much for spending some time with us today and this club ways but you've got a super interesting story you've got an awesome Instagram that we follow as well yeah really nice clean website as well so I love everything you guys have going on there so appreciate it and hope I get to make it to Duluth as well any time we got a place for anybody to stay if they ever let me know so just come on up and carry awesome thanks buddy I appreciate it yeah no problem thank you [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Printavo

Views: 5,490

Keywords: printavo, shop, software, management, screen printing, embroidery, project, business, custom t-shirts

Id: iSJ9ol0cI_A

Length: 55min 15sec (3315 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 11 2018