For Our Community, By Our Community

Change is all around us. The air is crisp & the days are rainy. Folks are gearing up to make all things APPLE. Football has a tight grip on our Sunday afternoons and has us on the edge of the seat as the Bills seal a 4th win.

At our shop, we continue to change and grow; thanks to YOU! It’s a weird feeling to boast about business growth during a worldwide downward spiral. But we aren’t talking about makin’ money and ballin’ out. We are talking about support and community. We want to honor the folks who keep our business alive, especially during this time. We want to show our support back. Here is the story of our year(s).

January 2020 was looking like it would be another grind, just like we experienced in 2019. We were working with a trusty 6 color manual press, a questionably loyal 8 color automatic press, and a dusty 8 color hand me down manual press that wasn’t used often; operated by a team of 5. Then we heard about an automatic t-shirt press that ran quietly, smooth as butter, and as reliable as your grandma. We had to have it… but did we have the work for it? That’s always the question when you aspire to grow in business. There is a fine balance of making smart decisions and taking risks… speaking of risks, before I get too far ahead, maybe a short time warp back even further - early 2019.

2018 felt like OUR YEAR. We were maxing out our 2,500 square foot studio on Connecticut Street and felt like we needed to make a serious move in 2019 if we were going to prevent spontaneously combusting.

Our Connecticut Street Sweat Shop

We started sniffing around and after a long, grueling search, we landed on a 7,500 square foot warehouse in rough condition off of an “up and coming” Niagara Street in Buffalo’s west side. Now, anytime someone claims that a neighborhood is up and coming, my eyebrow tends to raise aggressively in doubt. Imagine The Rock in his 90’s glory - he’s like “you serious, bro?”. It was clear here, however, that the area was about to blow up - and we needed to be part of it. The investment would be bigger than we were comfortable with. The obligation to fill the space with equipment felt overwhelming. The downtime it would take to transition would upset so many of our customers. But it simply HAD to be done. We knew it, so we took a couple big deep breaths and made a leap of faith. We had an undeniable urge for growth, and this place had all the potential. We had dreams of a space to make our awesome shirts and then take a load off with a fun area for our team to shoot the stuff - ping pong, a cafe, a skate ramp…

The Decision…

The Renovations

2019 proved that the work was there, but there was no fun area or fun to be had. The loyalty of our customer base, our community, our support… it was all there and growing. The work never stopped and we were obligated to show up. We didn’t, and still to this day don’t, rely on the chance that folks will see and trust our message through paid advertising. So we put all of our faith into the word of mouth growth we have always seen. We had not idea it would keep us grinding. Moving on to 2020…

We knew we wanted to start doing more to show our appreciation starting out the year. We played around with discount incentives, freebies, etc. The first flex for our year would be a festival we called HOW Workshop. We teamed up with super cool local vendors who would come show off their craft in a market setting. To say the least, it sparked an old creative flame for our shop. We were FIRED UP! Our next move was to invest in our customers, in our company. Our obligation to create the highest quality t-shirt prints didn’t feel like a burden. It felt like motivation.

Then things started to look a bit grim. We all know where we are going with this so I’ll spare the boring pandemic talk… SHUT…DOWN.

When we were able to open back up in phase 1, we felt super privileged. We were grateful, but it felt strange. We knew we had to help who we could and we wanted our customers… our friends, to know we had their back. Our support proved to them and their followers that we were and remain to be trusted. As we continue to grow, we will continue to support our community and build incentives that benefit anyone we can impact.

I keep hearing things like “who wants to be on Earth in 2020"?” … I do. We do. And we want to support you so that you do too. Not only do I want to be on Earth, but I want to be right here in Buffalo. Inspiring folks who care to be inspired. Learning and growing. I want you to know - the world is as bright as you make it. Stay positive!