OK...... I am at a point in my business that I feel that the expertise on this site could really benefit me. I was pm'ing back and forth with Pierre the other day and he thought it may be a good idea to start a thread on the discussion. Before I get into the back story of how my business has grown I will preface it with the intent of this post. I am trying to decide between moving up to an automatic press at this time or continuing on as a manual shop at this time. If I do move up to a manual press I am very interested in the advice of the more experienced members here to help me out. So.... with that being said, let's begin!
Back Story....
First and foremost for those that do not know me I am a flight nurse on a medical helicopter. I worked long and hard to obtain this position which is very coveted in my chosen field. This is my 11th year flying and I love it more each shift. The best thing about the position is that I work six 24 hour shifts per month as my full time position. This allows me a great salary and lots of time off to be at home. For the past 4 years I have ran on online forum for custom motorcycle builders and fabricators. I was coming up with shirt designs and having someone print them up for me to sell on my forum. I was paying about $8 and selling them for $15. Things went really well and we sold a ton of shirts. Last may I decided that with all my spare time maybe I could print the shirts myself and make a little more profit on them. I started with a hobby kit from Hobby Lobby and some black speedball ink...... yes, one year ago that is how I was printing shirts! In June of last year I was approached by a local shop interested in selling their 6/4 Harco press. I made a great deal on it and hauled it home. Over the next month I sourced a Dryer, flash, exposure unit and all the small items to try out some printing on the new press. Everything I bought was used, older, not the ultimate way to do the job but none the less got the job done. To this day I am still using that 1989 model press and old mercury vapor exposure unit. My original intent was to make shirts for my forum and a couple of other business's that my friends were running. I needed a place to put this monster of a press so I rented a 700 sq ft building for $300 per month and moved in. I was not set up a week when I got a call from a friend that was involved in a Boy Scouts Shooting event that was coming up and wanted to know if I wanted to make some shirts for him. Now please keep in mind at that time I had NEVER seen Illustrator, PS or CorelDraw in my life! I accepted the challenge and made 50 shirts for him with a net profit of $250. I thought man.... if I could do a couple little runs like this a month and pay the rent I could do my own things at much less out of pocket cost to myself. Well..... That turned into a couple of bands from my church bringing me some designs to print to which lead to their freinds bringing me things form their bands and so on and so on. The next thing I knew I was doing 2-3 jobs weekly with a good repeat clientelle. In January I moved into a large space and bought out another small shop here ni Ohio. At this point I have been running on average of 5-6 jobs per week. The past 3 weeks I have been doing 10 jobs easily. My average run is approx 100-200 shirts per run. I currently own my Harco 6/4, a Harco 4/4 and a workhorse 8/8. I am running two 8 foot dryers.
The time has come that I am trying to decide if I need to step up to an automatic press or con't doing fully manual and bring in some help from time to time. I am finding it harder and harder to keep the pace up, especially on a week like this where many jobs are dark shirts with white ink and others being 3-4 colors per run. Financially I am at the point where I have approx $10,000 to invest in the future of my company. I really value the expertise on this site and like to hear opinions, both good and bad. I have been thinking of picking up a lower lever auto or possibly putting a down payment on something a little more mid range. I have been looking at the Tuf Javelins for quite awhile as well as older used M&R Gauntlets, etc. I would love to hear any feed back from those who have been in my position and how you proceeded.
