# Guess where i'm [email protected]



## denmilla (Jul 16, 2009)

At first i thought i would go into DTG but because its not or i didn't find it suitable for large supply, I decided to go into screen printing. OK, the costs of expenditure screen printing is a total of £3000.

Now where i'm stuck is, i can't operate from home but if i rent a local shop, they would charge around £2500-3000!
However, this is not included electricity bills, if i employ someone, etc.

Now is it worth? am i able to make that enough money to recover the costs of all these expenditure as well as making a profit?

Your advice and suggestion would be appreciated


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## TshirtGuru (Jul 9, 2008)

It depends how well you operate your business. If everyone knew they could make a profit with their business before starting, I think everyone would be a business owner.


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

I would agree with Henry...starting a business is a crap-shoot..you never know. So if you have equipment but can't operate from home..I guess you are stuck with two option...1st...sell the equipment..2nd...bite the bullet and do short term rental to see if there is potential..be prepared to lose money for the first 6-9 months. I guess there might be a third option..see if you can just rent space from another company that has surplus..


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## HM-1 Addict (Aug 21, 2009)

Do you have a relative with extra basement space or a spare bedroom? What about rearranging your home?


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## ambitious (Oct 29, 2007)

You can also split a lease with another buisness that's already operating like a barber shop, clothing store, etc.. Goodluck


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## hostingdiva (Mar 31, 2006)

There's no guarantee you're going to succeed in your business but there are certainly things that are red flags. Have you done a market analysis of your area - how many other people in your area already provide your services? Can you be cost competitive with them? How will you differentiate yourself? Most importantly, how much money do you have to spend on advertising?

If you don't have answers to these questions then you should do a bit more thinking.


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## mrbigjack50 (Jun 9, 2008)

Why cant you operate from house? is it due to lack of space or you rather have a store front?
If lack of space, why don;t you rent a space in a self storage place Ha. I have heard people doing this and some of these places are climate controlled and everything else. Just a thought.

Screen printing can be profitable as you can do all kinda specialty things, compared to limits and expense of DTG. 

6 to 9 month rule is this day/economy is more like 12month to 18 month due to everyone getting into there own biz. See who your competition is, people you can def. get steady work flow from ect.
Having own businesses is dandy, long hours, low pay at times and prick customers


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## TshirtGuru (Jul 9, 2008)

mrbigjack50 said:


> Having own businesses is dandy, long hours, low pay at times and prick customers


Owning a business is the most stressful things you can do in life, everything depends on you.


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## out da box (May 1, 2007)

But you don't have to worry about punching somebody else's clock or getting laid off at any time. You don't have a pay ceiling. It's got it's benefits, but there is a high price to pay to be independent.


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## Mocha Tees (Dec 9, 2008)

this was a good thread for me because i am going thru a similar situation. I was recently looking for a store-front to continue a bizness i started in my home..i figured i want to be able to put my shirts on display to bring more people in to see my creations...
But the expenses are crazy & this is just on paper...when i finished the financial part of biz plan, i would have to make close to $10,000 per month in order to cover the bills, utilities, insurance, supplies, advertising, employees salalry, MY salary, rent, etc
The rent is the bigggest part..i never rented in a plaza before, and the rent is crazy..$18-20 per sq ft!! unbelievable! But the location is PERFECT! There are major stores in the plaza (supermrkt, McD's, Subway, Sports bar, pizza hut, barber shop, day spa) 
In a one-mile radius, there are 10,600 people! Within 3 mi radius..54,097 people...with household incomes of $116,000...I will have to do some heavy marketing & advertising to let them know i am there but i still worry is this going to be enough.

Did u do a business plan? Did u see the business plan that Coming out Swinging posted? it was excellent & i believe it was a sample but the $$ is not exaggerated..I thought i was good with $30,000 savings..But with rent being about $3,000/mo thats 10 months of rent! 
I already know I MUST include silk-screening to my biz now even tho i was going to include it later..But i am still going to give the bizness a try.
good luck to u in your venture & keep us posted on your progress


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## Cam Lynch (Aug 13, 2009)

Just a thought as in different areas things are different, but around here where I live, I don't know of a single screen printer that has much of a retail sales operation at the site where they do screen printing. I'm guessing this might be different in a resort area such as a beach town or even a large city. Most seem to be hole in the wall operations, old metal buildings, bricked up former retail buildings, old garages or even a small industrial site. None are in first class retail sites.


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## lolloyd (Jul 5, 2009)

you don't really need a good space for production. 3000 is too much. a basement is good enough. try your room.. sacrifice for now. i made my room to a production room. i sleep at the living room.. my clothes are in my mom's room. but i'm slowly saving to make my own spot for production..


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## Omnios (Sep 19, 2009)

Hi

Was researching screen printers on the web in Canada and noticed one shop in a dense metro area and they kind of had a neat setup where they had a long narrow shop and the press was in the back behind a curtain and a big shop out front. Kind of a tight squeeze width wise but the square footage looked pretty low and the press just fit in the back. Might not be the best but if you can find a unit you can just get everything you need in and have room to work might bring the footage down and give you an opportunity to test the market. Looked more like narrow store footage than industrial. Also the basement approach sounds good eventually I might give that a try if I decide to make my own press but you will have to transport your merchandise to the store. As for the unit you might be able to work in the back but still manage the store so if things go crazy you will have to hire help so the basement approach works with that. 

My personal approach would be to test the market with minimal expenses as you can always move later if things take off. And try to get the most bang for the buck as for location and marketing. And limited expenses as long as it does not cost you money. There's an old saying don't spend money unless it makes you money but can not let that cost you money or your business. Also if your playing with retail what is the retail cycle as it is usually not even over the year and certain periods sales as better than others so if things slow down will it pay its weight. 

As for finding a unit don't stop looking you might stumbling into something that is perfect though that might take some time but you wont if you stop looking.

I have seen a few t-shirt shops here in Ontario Canada with high end t-shirts that do rather well. I live in a twin city and one is not known for the t-shirt shops as it has a big mall. The smaller town has a smaller mall on the outskirts of town and the t-shirt shops downtown do rather well.

There are so many variables so it would count on variables of your location and market. If you decide to do this I would spend a lot of time researching and thinking and rethinking. Bottom line is plan for what you can do now as you can always grow later on.


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