Advice on new startup?

[noiseloops]

@homer woah, i hope the moniker/alias does not have anything to do with a reference to Homer Simpson. Cause that lengthy reply was well worth a jolt!
Thanks again for the advice man. I certainly will digest it up and give ur advice a great deal of time.

[Baron265]

My advise is to buy at least one quality piece of equipment to start out with. That way, when you have a day like Homer described, you can go hug it. Cause it's the only thing in the shop that will love you as much as you love it.

[Inkworks]

. .send it ALL out to a contract shop, go fishing.

Lol, that would be a great signature line....

[Prosperi-Tees]

Homer pretty much nailed it!

[ebscreen]

If everyone contracted out, who would actually print?

[Screened Gear]

If everyone contracted out, who would actually print?

The guy screwing over everybody with really high prices. He has no competition.

[noiseloops]

Cheers again for all the love and words so far. ?

[noiseloops]

If everyone contracted out, who would actually print?

The guy screwing over everybody with really high prices. He has no competition.

Well technically that's what's happening out here. Where u either follow or juz ship out.

[RICK STEFANICK]

well first off this is a great industry with a lot of cool people...To start I would say go to the Atlantic City ISS SHOW!  it is only a few weeks away.

there I would look at all the different stuff then buy M&R.

sam arnt you running the new ryonet auto?    m/r  who are they?

[Homer]

haha, I'm just giving you the worst of it...there are way more benefits than issues...most of the time haha...every job has it's day. it all comes down to how bad do you want it...so go get it...

[ebscreen]

One time I had to climb up on top of my press and when I came back down my foot landed in a gallon bucket of red ink.
I was really happy to be a screenprinter on that particular day.

[abchung]

The best advice for a newbie wanting to break into this rag business..

Run as fast as you can away from this mess we call screen printing

There is nothing good and 'cheap' about printing shirts period!

If your area is already saturated, then sell and use the locals to print, you'll make more

I have to agree here. Brokering printing is a ton easier and if your good at sales you will make more for your time. The key is to find some dumb screen printer that thinks they are worth nothing. Find that guy that will believe you when you say the guy down the road is only charging me 10 cents a color. That is the guy you want to work with. Then after you negotiate the Sh!t out of his prices then tell him he has to do top quality work for you. Make sure to tell him your going to bring him a ton of work. If you can find that guy then your business will be a success. While your at it you may want to find 2 guys like that. Even thou your giving the first guy a ton of work they will hardly be able to pay the bills on what your paying. They will do it for a few years because they think as long as they are printing they are making money but its inevitable they will go out of business. Its always good to have a back up.

Best of luck and if you do get a press and want to print learn everything you can. It alot of fun at times and you can make money if your not like that dumb screen printer that thinks they are worth nothing.

OMG that dumb printer use to be me. I use to be so naive printing for those customers. Now I stand my ground.

I am not trying to put you off, but you need to think extremely carefully before investing in equipment.
1. Check what is the minimum wage? Will you be happy to live on that?
I need to compete with people who are happy to live on $5 U.S per day. My customers customers complain I am way to high.
2. Good vs cheap equipment or inks.
If you are going cheap, you are competing against the saturated market. Anyone here (South East Asia, Indonesia) can go to the shop, invest about $20 U.S in equipment and start a low quality screen printing business.
If you are going for good quality. Are your customers willing to pay for your quality?

Go slow on it, treat it as a hobby, if you don't make money, at least you have fun doing it.

[tonypep]

A good example of a good biz model is a project I turned over to Rick. It was a project where I had to walk away from a collaborration between an apperal mfr and designer (both seasoned and talented) whearase I could no longer provide the printing and fulfillment the app mngr was very concerned on where to find a dependable and reputable e. coast guy. Knowing that Rick and I must have met in a distance past and having had great discussions, I knew Rick was an excellent consideration. I put them together and, despite the initial hiccups one can imagine getting started, all three parties got it together knowing this was a mutually benefitial situtuation. Since then I can't speak to how this has developed but I am hearing hints that this has led Rick to other projects and has helped him to grow his biz. It can work when the right people get together and do the proper homework and due diligence. One sided relationships rarely work.

[Screened Gear]

Go slow on it, treat it as a hobby, if you don't make money, at least you have fun doing it.

This is good advice. Now for not making good money. Well that is not true for all of us. You can make great money in this business but you have to keep your overhead low. If you don't your just making money to feed the business. I have done this in other business I started. You just keep thinking someday things will pickup or you will pay off the equipment so you can make the big bucks. Most of the time when the equipment is paid off you have to buy something else.  You can get into this business very cheap. I got into it for less than $4000 with a rather nice setup with all the inks screens and everything. I made the exposure unit with a 500 watt shop light. It exposed in 13 mins. I started super small. Just buying what I needed to do the next job. I took on my first black shirts with a white print before I even had a flash. (did that one with a heat gun.) You can do great work with almost nothing. My business was never support to be a business. I just wanted to print some shirts for myself. To this day I have only printed myself 3 designs. less than 10 shirts.

When buying equipment always buy what will work not only for what your doing now but what you will be doing in the next 5 years. Some times you can't afford it but if you can do. That way you don't have to upgrade so often.

[noiseloops]

@homer like i mentioned, i came here seeking for advice, and any form of advice shld be taken into consideration. and really i thank you for that lengthy reply. it really does drive another viewpoint that was maybe at the back of my mind even.

@ebscreen getting the odd ink on me is already a pain, i cant imagine a bucketload.

@abchung thanks mate! i think you pretty much nailed it. it was always going to be on the model of a hobby and fun.

@tonypep yep i can see where you are going with it. i had the experience of another startup where all were goin in different directions.

@Jon thanks. i think you have somehow painted a picture of what what wanted to relay earlier on into proper words.


this was always going to be a side job cause this was "forgotten" hobby of mine that i ignored for a while. i do have a full time job on hand that pays the bills. only in the past year have i picked up screen printing again. and recently, theres been that case of what if i upgraded from single colors to multi colors. thus why i have sourced extensive on multi colors and basically got myself into a knot. hahaha.

we are not in a rush for things to take off in an instant. its just like how Jon mentioned it, to get things in cost effectively. and i'm still using heat gun currently. still exposing screens at 18mins using the 500w exposure unit. we're just looking for a good but cost effective upgrade.