We all talk about alignment with our customers. One shop, in particular, has taken that to another level with its focus on sustainability, company culture, and branding, and that is Dom Rosacci’s shop Superior Ink in Denver, Colorado.
On today’s Success Stories podcast, we’ll speak with Dom and learn about his shop and its focus on doing things correctly for the outdoor brands and customers they serve. You don’t want to miss this one!
We all talk about alignment with our customers. One shop, in particular, has taken that to another level with its focus on sustainability, company culture, and branding, and that is Dom Rosacci’s shop Superior Ink in Denver, Colorado.
On today’s Success Stories podcast, we’ll speak with Dom and learn about his shop and its focus on doing things correctly for the outdoor brands and customers they serve. You don’t want to miss this one!
Marshall Atkinson
Welcome to Success Stories brought to you by S&S activewear. I'm your host, Marshall Atkinson. And this is the podcast that focuses on what's working so you can have success too. We all talk about alignment with our customers. One shop in particular has taken that to another level with its focus on sustainability, company culture, and branding. And that is Dawn Versace shop superior Inc, in Denver, Colorado. On today's Success Stories podcast, we'll speak with Dom and learn about his shop and his focus on doing things correctly. For the outdoor brands and customers they serve. You're not gonna want to miss this one. So Dom, welcome to the Success Stories podcast.
Dom Rosacci
Thank you, Marshall. I'm excited to be here, man. I appreciate it.
Marshall Atkinson
Yeah, I'm a big fan of what you've been doing. Because you know, all into that sustainability thing. And so it's really good to see a like minded person in the industry. So this is gonna be a fun chat today.
Dom Rosacci
I can't wait. Yeah, it's been a fun journey and excited to kind of dig into that that sector a little bit.
Marshall Atkinson
Yeah, yeah. So let's go ahead and get started with just really your origin stories. So tell the folks here about how you started superior Inc. and take us back to how and why you started and talk about all that stuff.
Dom Rosacci
So I grew up kind of an outdoor enthusiast, specifically snowboarding, that was my real passion, you know, through high school kept me out of trouble. And so I started a snowboard clothing company called Neil volt. So was back in 2004, I believe is when I first started that brand, and we would do would purchase through like CustomInk. You know, they were even around back then in the early days. And I would sell to snowboard shops on consignment. And as that kind of progressed over the years, I started researching, how do you actually physically screenprint yourself, you know, this was before a lot of the resources that we have available now. And I kept landing on a screen printer. I didn't even know what it looked like no idea what to expect. But I worked at my grandfather's meat market for about a year to save up enough money to get my first caps press. Do you remember those presses? They were orange back in the day? Yeah. So we finally saved up enough to get that bad boy. And I didn't know you needed exposure unit screens, tape, all that fun stuff. So I actually hit up my buddy John McGee, you know, he's with Union and AV and now he had a skate shop down in Castle Rock. And I knew he had done screen printing back in the day in California. So he made me a parts list, to go down to Home Depot and hit up Midwest to start, you know, getting all the supplies that I needed to be successful. And really, the reason I started from the snowboard industry is doing it at a competitive level and getting injured all the time. I really wanted to stay connected to that industry without breaking bones. You know, so I started a snowboard brand, like I said, you know, servicing snowboard shops, skate shops, and, you know, then kind of mastered the craft of producing my own stuff and was kind of self taught. It was a long journey to figure that out. Now fast forward, I'd say three, four years later, you know, it was a real struggle. We didn't have E commerce back then. And so I started contracting some jobs for like a couple tattoo shops. I was still in high school man. So I was trying to you know, I had to move out of my basement into a two car garage, the rent was 525 bucks. And that's a big number when you're a high school kid. So I was kind of balancing school and running this business and it became more lucrative at the time to print for other shops, you know, I was making more money that way. And so that was kind of the catalyst in starting a screenprint company. I did both the brand and was screen printing for other people for about a two year period. And it kind of became a conflict of interest because you're a company that produces your stuff and is producing for other people. So in 2000 I want to say 2012 I actually founded superior ink and that's where I dissolved Knievel and focused on screen printing full time.
Marshall Atkinson
So that was just with the manual. So when did you like become the real deal? I have my own shop got an auto got, you know, have employees. When did all that happen?
Dom Rosacci
It took a while man you know I moved from that spot. It was off to Santa Fe down southern Colorado, Santa Fe and Titan road I moved out of that shop and got further down into Inglewood, which is a little bit closer to the city and it was probably like a three or four year period of printing on manual press is kind of a slow drip of adding employees until finally we got to the point where you know we got a gauntlet 1996 gauntlet It was our first auto, you know, back then, dude, it was hard. I mean, we're talking close to 15 years ago when I first started the screen printing company. So it was tough as a young dude back then not having a lot of mentors not having online resources. I mean, it's so there's so much value now and learning the craft before you start it. I was just thick in it, you know, trying to figure it out?
Marshall Atkinson
Yeah. How hard could it be?
Dom Rosacci
You know, I'd say like, the point of entry for screen printing is, the bar is pretty low. It's not like a wild investment, necessarily, until you start getting into automated equipment. But hopefully, you know, by the time you're ready for that you have a business going, you have some demand, and it's an easy turnover. So then fast forward, we moved to Denver, we got a shop off the pan. And that's where we got our second auto, you know, back then big oversized prints were a hot ticket item. So we got a challenge or three. And that was fun. So we run into autos, but both of them were janky. You know, they were stuff that I didn't finance. I bought it with cash. And I didn't have a lot of money in my pocket. So I just got the, you know, kind of bottom of the barrel, or they used Yeah, heavily. You know, I think each one probably had a couple of million impressions on them, and they were falling apart. And
Marshall Atkinson
so it looks like after ever revolution, it will do like little epileptic fit until, like
Dom Rosacci
100%. Yeah, don't have spray tack or anything on the arms, because that's. And then so really what catapulted us into like a legitimate manufacturing operation is we got to deal I won't name names, it's in the snowboard industry, but we did all their prototyping and sampling. You know, even 1012 years ago, that was kind of the norm, you would prototype, do samples, have salesman samples for them to go out to all the retail stores and sell. But that's a big ask, you know, if you're sampling a whole collection 20 to 30 designs, maybe a dozen or two dozen pieces per, you know, we had like 100 screens did full package relabeling, and we were just not set up for that at the time. So anyways, we got this contract did the samples were like, we've made it, you know, let's go ahead and buy a new brand new press move into a building to accommodate this. And so we did that. And two months after we made the move and financed the new equipment, that company actually said, Oh, we're going to move production to California, the rates are better. And you know, sorry. I mean, that was one of the scariest things ever, because you're now financially tied and married and you make all these sacrifices, and then your primary client drops you that's a learning lesson, you know,
Marshall Atkinson
yeah, did you have an agreement or anything or just Oh, agreement,
Dom Rosacci
it was a handshake, man, it was just, you know, at that point in time, I was probably 20 years old, just a young dude, kind of green horn not really knowing consequences and just trial by fire type situation. And it was devastating man, I was like, I don't know what, how we're going to do this. But with the death of one customer comes a rebirth of more. And we were able to kind of dig out of that and have a few big relationships, replace them. But you know, that's just one of those early lessons that you learned, like, you can't really go off the bro deals, you know, you really have to figure to make sacrifice and financial pivots, you really have to have something concrete, or just spread your eggs, you know, understand not put everything in one basket and expect and pray that that's going to be the end all solution.
Marshall Atkinson
Well, I'm a big believer in not having more than 20% of your business tied up into one customer. Yeah. Because it'll kill you. What happens with them as the end? You know, where's the t shirt? People, we don't really know what's going on with them day to day, and all of a sudden they go out of business or whatever, then what are you doing right? Especially if you're not getting all your money up front, and they owe you a lot of money, and now they're out of business. It's a mess, because the t shirt guys last people they're paying.
Dom Rosacci
Yeah, man. And I would say that fast forward, your biggest relationships, a lot of them understand that. And they actually don't want to give you more than, you know, 20% of their business. Because if a screenprint shop closes down, then they're in a tight spot. So it's kind of like that 20% rule. It favors both parties. And I'd like to say that most big companies that we contract with get that but then we've also had a scenario that just happened recently where it was one of our biggest accounts there on net 90 terms come time to pay the invoice. They file for Chapter 11 A month before and we got burned. And this was like a company that was warehouse or their headquarters was in the Empire State Building a massive, massive company that you just don't expect. You would never in a million years guessed that would happen, you know?
Marshall Atkinson
Well, just because they've got that blue blood status or whatever doesn't mean something's not going to go wrong. Yeah. All right. So let's talk about where you are now. You've been around the industry. So how many employees you have presses all that kind of stuff? What's it look like for you now?
Dom Rosacci
Well, we have 30 employees between the two locations. We have three automatics and oval a p 18. And a p 10. We're heavy into finishings. So we work with a lot of retail brands. So we have fully automated folding bagging, we do tagging, that's our screen printing location, our second location, we acquired an embroidery company in 2020, right before the pandemic. So we run about 50 foreheads of embroidery at our second location. So combined with between the two, we have 30 people, really solid team, I've been at this long enough now to kind of be able to get through the ups and downs. And yeah, it takes a lot to build good culture and have good people that you're proud of. And I think we're kind of at that, I would actually say the sweet spot is closer to 15. People, I think that's when we're at our best in terms of culture. With this many people, you're walking that fine line, you know, you really have to have corporate policy, which is tough for screenprint. Dudes, you know, like, we're self taught a lot of creative people, and it's hard to cross that bridge, but you just have to have this structure in place with that many people.
Marshall Atkinson
This is gonna be a good segue into my next question, because I know as you've grown, he read a particular book, and that I think, really helped you orchestrate kind of your mindset around growth and scaling and infrastructure. And that, and that was the book traction, we talked about that earlier, in our pre call, and that really kind of helped you set up your team culture for your shop. So why don't you talk about that for a minute? And kind of explain to everyone what a difference that made for you?
Dom Rosacci
Yeah, so 2016 is when I picked up that book, and I'll be the first to admit just the way that my mind works. I am not one that retains information when I get it. So I'll have to say that there was a couple key things in traction that kind of shifted and made a huge pivot for us as a business. But one of the main things is just identifying your core values. The word quality is so saturated, and it's just people talk about it to their blue in the face. But really, for me, you know, I wanted to build something, a pillar of the business that had more purpose, I had two huge takeaways from that one is top down how your company is built, you know, you have visionary and you have integrator. I've never been an integrator. I've always had ideas, but actually implementing them are super hard. So when I identified that I really understood that the power of delegation, the power of having the right butts in the right seats, so that was a huge takeaway. Right. Another one was the core values, like why do you exist? You know, this was like, finding your why before that philosophy kind of like broke into business. Now it's a staple, why do you start your company, but sustainability to me was one of the things that was the low hanging fruit, it's like, how can I make the biggest impact with the limited knowledge that I know, you know, I don't know, politics? I don't know a lot of things. Stay within my lane, and change what I can control?
Marshall Atkinson
Yes, that's great. And is going to come no shock to you that I'm an integrator? Oh, yeah, getting things done. Right. Yes. So, you know, as a former Chief Operating Officer, that's my job is to, let's get it done. And let's get it done quicker and cheaper, right? Yeah. How can we do that? And sustainability actually became the code hook that I hung everything on, because as you know, is sustainability is all about doing things with less, less materials, less effort, less waste. And way back when you know, I was an art director, what do I know about production? And then I got promoted into running production, just because I kept asking questions that nobody had the answers for, and that would like find the answer and the hey, let's do that. So that's kind of how it went. And so I found sustainability. And that gave me an inroad into like Lean Six Sigma, and all the other manufacturing kind of ideas, right. But it was sustainability. It really helps with that. So I was all in real early. And that kind of came out of a trip. I went to the SGA show one year when they hadn't in Atlanta. And they were just starting the sustainable green printing partnership certification. And I got the company worked for at the time to be the first apparel decorator to get certified by it. And when I left that company, I went to another one. And I got that company certified. So I've gotten two companies certified for sustainability. And I think you'll agree with this. Once you adopt that mindset. It helps you look at your costs, look at your workflow, look at what you do, which is to kind of different outlook. And actually even though it Initially, it might cost you some money, it actually makes you money. It makes you more profitable. It also is an offensive sales weapon. Because if you were to judge two companies and one is certified sustainable, and the other isn't, most customers are going to go with somebody who's doing things better. And he actually started winning a lot of jobs, because you prove you're the real deal. Right? And when you agree with
Dom Rosacci
that, yeah, 100%. And I think that there's no real right or wrong way. In terms of the barrier of entry to get involved with sustainability, I think the most important thing is one doesn't matter to you, you know, because like you said, there's a initial cost restraints into doing the right thing, but I think long term, yeah, there's some cost savings, and there's just sustainability is kind of a vague word. It's like, are you sustainable as a business? Meaning you're gonna last long term? And are you sustainable from an environmental perspective? And, and so I think what I've always said is, we don't say we're pioneers of sustainability by any means I'm just winging it, you know, and have since day one, I think the important thing is that I do want to have a positive impact on, you know, with an industry that has kind of some negative consequences to the environmental journey. But, you know, I think the important thing is, do you want to make a difference? And then it's just asking yourself, How can I get involved step 123, you know, the low hanging fruit, what are some easy ways to get into it, and then ultimately, long term, when you really root into it, there's definitely some cost barriers, and that's going to come from a monetary side, like, you know, offsets for your carbon emission and investing in certain equipment that's going to help minimize certain things.
Marshall Atkinson
I think getting back to traction a little bit, you know, from that book, right, one of the things that really helped me when I read it was the whole idea of kind of mapping things out as to where we want to go, and getting everybody on board with the same ideas. And then breaking that up into the rocks idea where you can only do maybe up to maybe three, this better if it's just one or two, for the next six weeks. And that's what we're going to focus on. And then we're going to cycle through these. And that's your main focus is getting these big ideas handled, and the little stuff is going to work itself through, right. So talk about how you've used that idea from traction, to kind of move your company into a different direction are you like, using the book like that, and building a culture,
Dom Rosacci
not necessarily, like I said, you know, just the way that my mind works, I kind of dive into things, and then I retain only the things that actually stick with me. So I haven't had this book, by my side, you know, as as kind of a weapon through the whole process, I think 2016, I really invested into it. And then whatever stuck with me that I retained from that book, I applied to the business. I think the core like the pillars of sustainability, for first appearing, was one, like understanding the way that things are manufactured, and the supply chain, and the garments that you're, you know, you're printing on. But then also, we went through this certification with the city of Denver, that was really helpful for us just identifying our, you know, our output and our impact from utility side. You know, from a power side, I've talked about this before, but it is pretty easy to get discouraged, because to a certain point to be the most sustainable shop, you shouldn't really be producing anything if you really want to be sustainable. And obviously, that's not realistic. So we had to kind of clean up our process as much as we possibly could, in terms of a production standpoint. And then the big thing for us is just educating customers on, you know, the data of going with, say, a conventional cotton shirt versus an organic cotton shirt, you know, educating them on the difference between virgin polyester and recycled polyester. And there's pros and cons to a lot like any topic, you can find a con to it, you know, like microplastics, for example. So it's really easy to get discouraged. because sustainability is a discipline, you know, it's something that you have to stick to, and you always learn more as you go and you pivot. But to answer your question, I think traction to me was just that light bulb that was like, oh, okay, I understand, like, you need to do these in phases, and you're not going to just change everything overnight. You know, it's a slow drip. And it's something that as long as you stick to it, and you're constantly willing to educate yourself and improve and get your team on board, then I think you're gonna make a pretty good impact, you know, long term.
Marshall Atkinson
So you sound like you're more of a visionary guy. So who is your integrator there?
Dom Rosacci
Well, our integrator I wish I could say I've had the same integrator for the past 10 years, but unfortunately, it comes and goes you You know, we have an integrator on the production side, Hunter has been with me for 10 years, and he's really that process guy now. Now, he's not analytical, you know, Marshall, like, I know that, from my experience with you, the way that you think about things is very analytical numbers. I wish we had that type of thinking in here. But being the business that we are, it's more implementation from, I guess numbers factor into it. But it's not like we have a CFO that's helping with processes back there, you know, Hunter does a tremendous job on the production side, and then upfront with me, I've always kind of had a right hand person that's like, I could bring things to the table, this is what I think we need to do. And then we have people run with it. From an actual accounting perspective, we do have a fractional CFO, that's helped us tremendously and helps me understand how to even look at financials on that typical business owner fly by the seat of your pants, you know, nose down, going off gut and intuition. It wasn't until probably years seven or eight that we actually had some financial people come in and say, Hey, Dom, this is how you read a p&l like this is important stuff, man, you can't just go by your gut.
Marshall Atkinson
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Marshall Atkinson
Let's talk a little more in depth about sustainability. So the certification that you earned in Denver, did you have an auditor come out and got any other certifications that you've earned? Or like talk about that process a little bit about how that you've used that certification for your advantage in sales?
Dom Rosacci
Well, we did have an auditor through that process kind of guiding us it was a lengthy deal. You know, it took us about six months to do the initial kind of checkpoint analysis and make changes and then probably another six months to a year to actually have the revenue to invest in it, you know, like, on an old building like this, for example, the T twelves. You know, how much energy are the old school T twelves. Burning and replacing them to LED I mean, it was unrealistic for us at the time to just invest, you know, 15 $20,000, and in replacing all those. So, it was like, what do we have the financial capacity to change right now? And then, you know, longer term? How can we kind of change that?
Marshall Atkinson
So hold on, do you know that there's grant money for that? Did you look into doing that?
Dom Rosacci
Yeah. So we did the rebates through Excel would have been maybe the $20,000 range was significantly less through that rebate program. So yes, we did explore that. But these are all things that you're learning as you go, you know what I mean? Like, a couple years after that certification, we brought cam in as a sustainability director, you know, so that we could actually have somebody that's day in day out studying how we can be better and what we can do and what programs are out there. So I haven't gone through extensive certifications through you know, I know you have some two that you've you've touched on and mentioned before, I would say for our sustainable journey that was the linchpin is working with the city on how to identify things, and then kind of self implementation after that point of just learning and exploring, like what our impact is and how we can improve it the most possible.
Marshall Atkinson
So I think for you and other shop owners that are listening, one thing you might want to look at is your region, your city, your state. If there is a Manufacturing Association, like you're in Colorado, there's probably a Colorado Manufacturing Association. You as a apparel decorator, you're a manufacturer, you might think, well, I don't build car doors. You know, I'm not a manufacturer, but we do manufacturing, we take something, we change it somehow and out pops a different product. That's manufacturing. So you have every right to belong to the Manufacturing Association. And a lot of these associations are affiliated with state government with the federal government. And this is how you can apply and get a lot of money to change your approach. process is good and energy audit or a good guy to come in and recommend different way to do your HVAC or different lighting or whatever. I was always looking into that. And there's all types of really great grant money out there. And usually right now, at the beginning of the year a little bit is when you should be applying for that. Because, you know, by like August or September, you know, a lot of that money is already gone from these programs. But it's like, these are the people you need to make and make really good friends with. And I got an $80,000 sustainability grant from the City of Milwaukee to buy a core neat avalanche DTG printer. And that was from the City of Milwaukee. And I use their own engineers to test the difference between screen printing and digital. As far as energy usage, I applied and got the grant using their own engineers and math. And that was a really nice check.
Dom Rosacci
I'm curious Marshall, what was the difference in data of energy consumption between the two?
Marshall Atkinson
Don't remember, this was quite a while ago, but it was really looking at all the different processes. Because when we're screen printing, we're making screens, and there's a lot of energy that's made in the using screens and reclaiming screens, because we're 300 screens a day shop, right. So we had a lot going on through that. And so they were just hooked up, they have these little meters that you can hook up to anything that uses electricity. And you can measure how much energy is being used. Right. And so we took all that data and made a spreadsheet, and then we measure the use for DTG. And it was like a fractional part of it. And I mentioned that association, because I kept going to the city events. And I would see the sustainability director there. And I kept going, Hey, buddy, where's my money? Hey, where's my money? You know, it kind of a thing. And my final kicker, was it because I knew the mayor was running for reelection. I said, Hey, can you imagine the TV crew coming out to our shop to film that the mayor was able to get a sustainability grant for this t shirt shop, that's gonna play really well on TV. And about two weeks later, we got the money, Oh, that's awesome. You just gotta go. And you got to stick out your hand, you got to bug the crap out of people and just meet him just like anything, you gotta sell it right. So but the key is to find out where where the treasure is, right? And there's all these little grants and all these little things, and they can just come out and help you with workflow and employee training and all that stuff. There's tons of stuff like that out there, you just got to apply for it. So
Dom Rosacci
yeah, and I think that's one thing too, is that that is the kind of the scary thing for a business owner, whether you know, whether you have, you know, 10 Autos or two autos, or just a manual shop, I think it's not necessarily the costs. That's that's the scary part with sustainability. It's the time, you know, whether it's you as the business owner, that's searching all these grant opportunities, and just ways that you can kind of get involved with these index programs, or hiring a specific employee that that's their sole job is to look into how to improve, you know, I think it's more of a time resource than it is a cost resource. I mean, there's a little bit of both, but certainly, certainly can be a full time job, you know,
Marshall Atkinson
right? Well, I wasn't full time doing that. This was, you know, a lot of work on it here and there. And I think if you read to second lien by Paul Akers, riser, that's a really good book, if you're interested in starting, even if you don't ever get certified, just cleaning up your act and doing things better. And reducing time reducing waste, reducing steps, all that is sustainable, your quality, you know, not making any errors is always sustainable. Just looking at the product and the consumables you're using. Yeah, all that stuff can really help. And you know, so it's just, what are you doing, and really opening your eyes? And I think for a lot of shops out there, they tend to think, well, we've always done it this way. And this is the only way we're going to do it, which is why they never look at a different motion or different ink or a different process or, you know, they're using the same old press they've had for 20 years, and not realizing that maybe a new one could reduce the energy being used or the amount of prints or doing a day or you know, just being more effective. Yeah, you know, it's just really asking why and open your eyes to the possibilities. So I think it's great that you've gone to those lengths, and you're still on the path.
Dom Rosacci
Yeah, Ah, yeah, for sure. It's not easy, but I think it's also getting your team on board. You know, it's like explaining why you're doing it. Yeah, you know, and making sure that there's not a whole lot of resistance within the organization, because that makes it really difficult to if you don't have people that are open to change, that could be a very few.
Marshall Atkinson
Well, you don't want to be, there's only one guy and you're the sustainability Police telling people to turn the light off, or recycle that can cause that doesn't go anywhere, right? Yeah. All right. So hey, let's end the show here. And let's talk about the future. Right. So where do you think this industry is going? And really, what are you most excited about there in your corner of the world?
Dom Rosacci
I'm really intrigued by AI and automation and technology. You know, we're at this really pivotal moment where that's starting to kind of trickle into every single industry, you know, whether people kind of comfort themselves into believing it or not. But yeah, this chat GPX is pretty wild. I think there's a lot of innovation happening in our industry that historically it hasn't, I feel like we've been a little bit lagged behind in terms of innovation. But you know, I'm excited to see, as these equipment manufacturers, and technology companies continue to improve, like, where that brings automation and streamlining. I mean, you know, the digital squeegee and hybrid printing is obviously on on the horizon. And, you know, we're screen printers, like we've always been resistant to DTG. Because I feel like we're all scared that it's going to take the craft out, which it certainly can. Personally I've recognized it, I see it out there, I think there's a lot of increase in on demand versus like volume. And we're just kind of taking a backseat for a minute just to see what happens with our industry. And I've been a big proponent of not pivoting until I feel like it's the right time, you know, we just invested in that oval with the intention of having a hybrid printer, not quite ready to pull the trigger on that. But I think as the technology gets better, certainly something that we're looking to explore, you know, we're not close minded to the idea, but I don't want to be version A, B, or C, I want to be version F, you know, once all the bugs are worked out, we want to plug and play solution. We don't want to be fighting r&d on some new technology.
Marshall Atkinson
Well, I think what's really interesting is you're exactly right AI, right. And I read this article the other day, and they were talking about the impact that photography had on the art scene, because remember that at one point, there was no such thing as a camera. And so the whole article was about all the artists at the time, were throwing up their hands going, we'll never need to paint that landscape or that bowl of fruit again, cuz you can just take a picture of it. And so here we are, 200 years later, or three years, it was right, and we're still painting, we're still taking photos, and we now we could take photos of that bowl or fruit, or that landscape with our phone. Right, which 30 years ago, you'd never imagined taking a picture with their phone, are you crazy, you know? So I think the chats or the AI aren't you can make where this is gonna go is there's going to be people who can use that, and model it and interpret it for what they want. And it's gonna be just another tool in the toolbox. You know, so, you know, I write a lot, is it going to replace me? It could, but would it replaced my thoughts or how I think about things, you know, probably not right, just like you can use the tool to create some fantastic arts. But that doesn't mean that that is from a particular person, it's gonna be very interesting. I think a lot of like the clip art type services are going to be really instantly out of business. Because if we can have 34 different ways of doing a beaver or mascot for some sort of high school, and instantly you've got artwork, and your client just picks the one they want to use and you're done. I think that's going to be a real interesting kind of way that things might morph into things. We'll be ready to print will be ready to embroider. I don't know. Right? And where's it going to go? I don't think anybody can predict. I think it's really early. That's kind of an interesting as far as a DTG goes, think about, you know, these been around for quite a while it hasn't replaced screen printing. But what it has done is made it real easy to do print on demand stores, which of course is more sustainable than screen printing. Because if you're only decorating a shirt as as being ordered, there's no waste that is more sustainable. And I think what's being DTG is really being replaced with DTF that's what the real interest is right now. Because DTG is really about printing on cotton and DTF is, you know, transfer can go on really anything, right. And so that's going to be kind of an interesting kind of thing as that plays out. And that market grows a little bit. I know lots of shops who really heavily invested in DTF right now, and they've gotten rid of all their screen printing equipment, and they're just go into town with that and making lots of money. And it's hard for screen printers to look at that. And think, well, it's done screen printing, I'm not interested in that. And my response to that is, is the label that you look at yourself with. So if when you introduce yourself, how do you introduce yourself? You say, Hi, I'm Dawn on screen printer? Or do you say, Hey, I'm dumb, I'm a business person, I'm an entrepreneur, what label are you're giving yourself for, I think really determines how you kind of view what decoration method might suit you best.
Dom Rosacci
Yeah, I'd have to agree with that. It's not necessarily scary, because any savvy business owner will know when it's time to evolve, you know, but having seen exactly the offset world, you know, 30 years ago, offset was the staple. I mean, you couldn't even touch the speed, you couldn't touch the low cost. And then now it's very, very rare to find an offset printer. And it's kind of irrelevant to screen printing. So I think a lot of us in the back of our minds are asking, like, Man, when the technology is fast enough and more cost effective? Will it get to the point of replacing screen printing? Or is it going to be a juxtaposition of both, you know, but I would have to go back to the photograph analogy that you made. I mean, it is interesting to see, you know, how art was even 1015 years ago, how art was created by using photographs. And like the very rudimentary elements of Photoshop. And now, man art is a dime a dozen, like in 2003, if you had really cool art, you're probably going to be fairly successful in selling the streetwear brand. Now, it's kind of reverted from having cool artwork to like, having good messaging and having something that feet people can feel good about. And, you know, because art is just or cool graphics on T shirts are, are not necessarily the forefront of the selling point like they used to be now it's you kind of have to take a more holistic approach and have you know, the I feel like the brands that are the most successful have that brand loyalty, like, I used to feel with wearing snowboard clothing, by wear a Volcom shirt, I was part of this community. And I felt like the textiles on my back brought me into this, like certain demographic that I was proud of. And I feel like we're kind of reverting back to that in regards to clothing and textiles. And that's where sustainability is cool, too. You know, if you're wearing a bamboo shirt, and you really care about not being an over consumer, it's cool to talk about like this bamboo, this is bamboo, or this is organic cotton. You know, that's that brand loyalty brings you into kind of a culture. But yeah, it's weird, dude, it's there's a lot of speculation with the AI world and things are moving incredibly fast. So it's hard to really for anybody to predict, you know, what the three next three years, five years and 10 years are gonna look like. But we're along for the ride. And I think any smart business owner just, you know, educate themselves, see what the industry is doing and, and adjust where needed? I don't I don't think it necessarily needs to be a scary thing. Well, here's,
Marshall Atkinson
you know, just listening to you talk, I think one of the things that we have to recognize is that we have to be part of our customers community. Right, instead of selling them things, we have to be listening to what they're interested in, right. So can we create products that they're they're asking for, or they really will desire, rather than trying to sell them stuff? Yeah, right. And I think that where we get in trouble sometimes is we make things and we tried to sell it to people and convince them as the thing to do, rather than we're making things that somebody already is wanting.
Dom Rosacci
Yeah, no, I agree with that. And that's been the traditional model of screen printing is like, without just blabbing it out to somebody like Oh, produce more and more volume. I mean, the pricing speaks for itself. So now, it's more of taking this holistic approach, and learning and discovering what the needs are of your customer. And if they're not in a position to produce volume, because they don't have the demand yet, then you can nurture that conversation and okay, then this doesn't make sense for you. Here's Solution B, which is DTF. Or, or hybrid or DTG. I mean, there's a model for every type of business. So I think it's advantageous for us as business owners to learn. Like you said, what the customer's needs are and and adapt the model specific to what's going to help them
Marshall Atkinson
well cool. So what's next for you guys? What do you guys do in this year? I mean, big things.
Dom Rosacci
We are we're cruising on autopilot things are good this year. We started fulfillment company, which I'm pretty excited about. So that's kind of where a lot of my focus is going this year is, is fulfilling, you know, orders for clients. That's a big need for them. So we'll see how that goes. And other than that, we're going to have some fun with this oval we're going to continue to invest in and the resources and tools that we need to be more and more successful with waterbased. We're in a very dry climate here. So we are kind of trying to push the envelope there. And hopefully that oval helps us be more successful with that venture.
Marshall Atkinson
Well, great. Well, that's so awesome. So thank you so much, Tom, for sharing your story of success with us today. What is the best way to contact you as someone who wants to learn more about what you do or how you can help them?
Dom Rosacci
Emails the best way DOM is appearing? printing.com You can follow us on Instagram just superior Hank, Facebook, we got YouTube channel for educational content. You know, you can call superior and shoot us an email. All right, awesome. Well, thanks
Marshall Atkinson
for your time today. It was a blast.
Dom Rosacci
You got it. Marshall, I appreciate you and I appreciate your knowledge and everything you do for our industry, man. Thank you.
Marshall Atkinson
Well, that's our show today. Thanks for listening. And don't forget to subscribe, so you can stay up to date on the latest Success Stories episodes. have any suggestions for future guests or topics? send them my way and Marshall and Marshall atkinson.com And we'll see you next time.