Personal Motivation & Background
After dealing with vendors and print shops to build an apparel brand to support my supplement line Nirvana Life Nutrition and BFY Life, I was extremely dissatisfied with the level of service and turnaround times it took to place my order. Before I started printing myself in 2022, I outsourced the work; the average turnaround time was roughly 90 days.
These orders were small (under 12 units) and when I would inquire about the delays the person doing my work would tell me that she just didn’t like doing my orders. And then I would have to reach out to the owner of the company and it was just a mess.
I started researching screen printing and heat transfers to see if this was even something I could do. Remember it was taking this vendor 90 days, so I thought this was technical skilled work. Yes there is an art to it, and some skill is involved but it was not as in-depth as I had thought it was going to be from my previous experiences.
Now my background is in restaurants I had no skill or knowledge of e-commerce or making shirts. But I didn’t allow that to stop me. You can learn just about anything you want to learn on YouTube. As I call it YouTube U[university].
As many people don’t know my last venture in Food & Beverage lost me over 6 million dollars. So, starting new companies, I didn’t have a lot of working capital. But I did not let that stop me. There are a lot of ways you can start a company without a lot of working capital.
Working capital can make things go a lot smoother and quicker. So, you must be patient, piece together the equipment you need, and you have to be willing to learn a lot of new skills that may not be directly connected to your new venture. For example, I had to learn website design, SEO, photography, and video editing, to name a few.
Initial Challenges & Solutions
When I started, I decided to go the route of starting with heat transfers, which had a lower startup cost than screen printing, as well as a lower learning curve. I was never afraid of making mistakes, but I didn’t want to waste a lot of shirts, ink, and time until I got myself a little better off financially. So maybe I was afraid of making mistakes!
When I decided to start with heat transfers it just happened to be around the time of my birthday, and as our parents like to do, my mom wanted to support me, and she bought me my first heat press. I bought a decent one-off US Cutters website and was their red one (I still use it today) It is the 16×24 and I believe all in after discounts and shipping it was roughly $400.
So that took care of pressing the transfers now I just needed to find a place to make the transfers, Luckily, I lived close enough to a manufacturer called Transfer Express and I could do pickups instead of paying for shipping. Shipping is only $15 with them but when you are only buying $10 worth of transfers at a time, $15 seemed like a lot to me instead of taking 20 minutes and driving to Mentor and doing a pickup.
The last thing I needed to start pressing was well apparel blanks. I tried first with SanMar, but they only wanted Custom Apparel companies and at the time I was just doing my brand. Next, I went to S&S Activewear they signed me up and I was good to rock and roll.
The first time pressing I messed up a lot, locking down timing, using the mat provided, and pressure. And I thought I got into something over my head. But after some trial and error and maybe $30 in wasted prints I got everything locked down, and I was off to the races.
But my learning didn’t stop there, I went all in to learn the best way to place the transfers, lining them up and sizing, etc. Whatever you do you/re never good enough to stop learning. Be humble and keep getting better and your craft.
Ideation & Planning
When I started Cuyahoga Valley Custom Apparel my only goal was to go above and beyond when it comes to Customer Service. Sounds simple, right? But when dealing with other local custom apparel companies either they don’t see the value in it or don’t understand customer service.
In my 20+ years of owning various companies. The times I’ve succeeded the best was when my communication with customers, and employees was at my best. Letting them know what was going on, the good and the bad. Now customers don’t want to hear why their order isn’t going to be ready on time, or when I had a restaurant why they are waiting 20 minutes for a round of drinks.
But they care about being noticed and having their frustrations validated. Simply listen and let them know what you are going to do the make the situation better.
Financial Beginnings
When I started acquiring equipment for this business. I was lucky that my mom was able to gift me a heat press, and I was able to start creating and learning how to develop apparel for my other company BFY Life.
But I knew I wanted and needed screen printing equipment and that was going to cost me a little nugget. But my thought process was I could piece equipment together little by little. Not necessarily be able to start screen printing right away by buying one piece, but accumulate pieces that I could start with and grow with.
But then I had a break, I was able to acquire a full set that I could create from CrossFit Tiffin who was getting out of making their apparel. I had a friend who was willing to loan me the $3,000 I needed to buy the equipment and from there I was off to races.
As I started making more money, I was able to upgrade my equipment to the equipment I wanted and not the equipment I could afford. And the nice thing about this being a second business I was able to reinvest 100% of what I’ve been making into the company to be able to build it up.
Getting customers in the beginning was a challenge I tried joining a local chamber of commerce and that was a joke. I always know you must give value before you can expect to get value. So, for 3 years I was very active with my local chamber, two of those years I sat on the board created their website, made cold calls on their behalf, and put in the work, and I got zero leads and sales.
Then out of boredom and curiosity of learning the cigar business, I started working weekends at Havanna’s Choice Cigars where I got constant orders from the lounge, a local restaurant, and from customers. It is all about being around the right people, not necessarily about doing the things our parents did.
I don’t want to bash all Chambers of Commerce my one friend Nick in Maine owns High Pine and is a member of the local chamber and he is killing it with the chamber with leads and orders.
Building the Brand
When it comes to branding your brand, I do tend to struggle a little with this. I’m a big fan of the phrase Forever Young as I see it as more of a mindset than a brand name, but Be Forever Young is my brand, and for a while, all companies were named according to the phrase “Forever Young”.
When it came to going all-in on the custom apparel business the company name Forever Young Publishing, didn’t say to me “Custom Apparel”. And I wanted to change it up a little bit and keep the niche of the brand local.
Yes, we do ship across the country and have had a few international orders but the bulk of our business is local. So I wanted a name that fit me, my brand, and something that sounded and felt cool. So I came up with Cuyahoga Valley Custom Apparel.
Northeast Ohio has the second most visited National Park in the country and goes in and out of a ton of cities and townships throughout Northeast Ohio.
For my online presence, I did things a little differently, while I do own the handles for the brand I’m promoting all my work on my socials (I already have a hard enough time with the business handles I have now posting content regularly). And I rather reach my audience now instead of trying to build and reach.
However, I am focused more on local online marketing like Google My Business, SEO (hence this blog post), and Google Ads for the area.
Getting your first customer who isn’t a friend, mom, dad, or aunt was easier than I thought, I simply slid into business pages on Facebook with a standard message, telling them who I was, and what I was looking to do for them. I went after landscapers and snow removal contractors first since I know the business and I was thinking most of the orders would be smaller allowing me to build slowly instead of biting off more than I can chew like I would normally do.
Growth & Learning
I started to realize early on I was good at what I was doing when I would get repeat orders. If you are anything like me, you are your own biggest critic. So, I would do my work, and I would be like that’s crap, this is garbage, and there was nothing wrong with what I was doing. I was too afraid of not being perfect I would allow myself the grace of learning from mistakes. I believe it could also be called imposter syndrome.
But once a stranger placed his second order and affirmed to me that I was a lot better in service and quality than the larger national custom apparel companies (I was the first local company he used and the only one that reached out to him)
One of the biggest pieces of advice I can give is don’t be afraid to ask for help and don’t be afraid to ask questions. I watched some others online start their apparel business, and you bet your butt I slide into their DMs asking them questions, and those who were willing to help became my tribe, as well as myself, would support their business. Which is why I always think you should interact with your followers. This is also how I got to learn from Nick from High Pine Maine.
And the second piece of advice I would give is don’t be afraid of failing or making mistakes. You can overcome them, and one mistake is not going to paralyze your company. I had myself believe that to be true. You will be ok if you make mistakes, just, override, adjust, and overcome.
