I Knew Nothing About…

I mentioned in one of my other articles that I own a small T-Shirt screen printing business that I started over 14 years ago. My wife and I started with a table top printer which we purchased for $3500 from an Entrepreneur Show that was held locally here in Hawaii. I have always wanted to start a screen printing business ever since I caught a glimpse of an ad that was posted in a business magazine with a husband and wife team standing next to a rotary printer. This ad was very attractive and it did get my attention.

So we purchased the Table-Top Printer and picked it up from the show the very next day. It was all packed up and ready to go. I have to laugh about this now because when we got it home it stayed in the box for another 3 months before my wife pushed me to get it set-up and to familiarize myself with the machine. It was baseball season and we had to start getting business from the baseball leagues in our area.

Well I knew nothing about screen printing; all I had to get started was a little book from Scott Fresner titled “How To Print T-Shirts For Fun and Profit”. I read it that night, set-up the Table-Top the next day and still had one piece of the pie missing, a computer to do the graphics and design. My wife and I purchased a new Apple Computer from CompUSA and I had it up and running that day. Still another obstacle I faced, I had to learn how to use the computer and most important learn the software program that I borrowed from a friend. I started out with simple designs until I got familiar with Adobe PhotoShop. I learned enough to get me by the first few months and then it started getting easier. We took every job that came our way. We completed every order a day in advance and kept up with all our new business orders.

We worked really hard to build our business. It was long hours and little time to be with our kids together as a family. It was normally my wife taking the kids to their sporting activities and when I could break away I would attend their games. It took my wife and I about 2 years to build up a sizable clientele that came back regularly. We had repeat orders every year from the same teams. I also designed five cook book covers for a football team fundraiser. Our business was building with a lot of word of mouth advertising which is known as one of the best and cheapest ways to advertise.

Plans for the business were to add an embroidery machine and other equipment to make life a little easier for the both of us. Plans changed going into our 7th year of business.

To be continued…

Scott Fresners website: http://screenprinters.net