Starting a T-shirt printing company

July 21, 2018

There is a very old saying that reads this: “If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.” After many years of running a successful St. Louis screen printing and custom embroidery company, one of the most valuable lessons that I have learned is that it is not important that you do everything well. There is a lot to be gained by a collective effort. I have become aware that there are some things that I am extremely good at and there are many others in which I do not do well. That being said, it is not important that I am proficient at everything that I do.

However, what is extremely valuable is that I recognized what I’m great at as well as the areas where I am lacking and need help. Because I am aware of this, I surround myself with a network of people who are just amazing and by doing so I am able to more than offset all my many shortcomings. There is no victory in trying to be a one man band. Even if I could do everything well there is no possible way that I would ever find the time to address all the many different components there are to building a successful St. Louis digital T-shirt printing company. Once an individual realizes the advantages of having talented people on your side and working for you there is no limitation to how far they can take your business. A good example of this is that when I first got into the screen printing business . I started out by trying to learn the art of production. I can remember going out and buying an old broken down press that didn’t work well. At that stage in the game I didn’t know a good one from a bad one because I had no experience. Every time I would pull the arm down and let go, it would catapult an ink filled squeegee across the room and it would hit the wall. Although I didn’t know much about how a good machine was supposed to operate, I had a very strong feeling that it was not supposed to do that. Fortunately, the very first job I ever landed was a white T-shirt printed with a red company logo on both sides. That’s about the easiest application one could have hoped for.

Although there were a lot those misprinted apparel, it was all behind the scenes and the customer had no idea. All he knew was that his order was filled on time and looked good. The bottom line is that I got paid.

I can remember going to a local shop not too far from the neighborhood which I lived and just watching them work. They made it look so simple and easy but for me it was anything but effortless. So I went up to the owner and mentioned that she would be willing to let me work next to one of her better operators for a few weeks. I would be willing to work for free and just help out around his shop wherever he needed me to. He agreed to it and I started to get hands on experience needed to do production. I never really mastered it, but at least they gave me a much better understanding of what it would take to process these jobs in the future.

We are a local custom digital T-shirt printing and custom embroidery shop who has started with nothing and has worked our way to the very top and a leader in our field.