Dale Salamacha Discusses Print-Business Set-Up, Part One

Dale is co-owner of Media 1 Signs/Wrap This Ink! (Longwood, FL).

Having owned a business for more than 30 years, I occasionally get approached by budding entre-
preneurs. They may already own a business, and may be looking for ideas for gaining a competitive edge. Others simply want feedback about ideas they have for expanding their business. Some even want me to invest in their new venture, or, at least, look at their overall plan and give my opinion on whether their concept is feasible.

Owning a business provides many benefits. If you truly love business, and you observe people putting forth an effort to create something greater than what they currently have, you can’t help but want to give them some advice based on your years of experience. So, when my fiancé, Christy Barker, and her sister, Shelly Nakabayashi, approached me with their latest new-business idea, I was all ears.

Look before you leap
Shelly’s experience has focused on wedding and event planning, and Christy has run multi-million-dollar companies. They also have a great relationship, and I was intrigued with their idea: providing photographic backdrops for professional photographers’ use.

Pro photographers use numerous photorealistic, printed backdrops for their shoots in order to create a scene or a theme that isn’t really there. They might want to shoot their subject in a lush green field, with tall grass swaying in the breeze against contrasting, bright-blue skies, with a majestic old home standing proudly on a hill. Or, maybe they just want some splashy colors that create a more inviting background than a typical, boring gray scene you’ve seen in countless photo-studio pictures. But the photographer wants to create such scenes from the comfort of her studio; this creates the opportunity Christy and Shelly want to exploit.

We began studying the concept with weeks of market research. This is very important before opening any type of business. Also, we established some parameters for structuring the new company. Market research can entail several different elements, all tailored to your business plan’s particulars. For instance, Christy and Shelly’s plan required knowledge of the competition: Would printed-backdrop production be a viable money-maker? Are other companies already doing this, and are they profitable? Or, is this concept uncharted territory?

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Also, market research requires practical, industry-specific considerations. What kind of printer would we choose, and why? What are the best printable materials for our particular use? How would we market our services? What type of facility would the operation require? Could we run it out of our home? These are just a few points to ponder.

Of course, the fun aspects include naming the new company, designing the logo, website, cards, etc. Mundane and tedious, but necessary, aspects involve filling out the legal documents to create a corporation, writing partnership agreements, outlining buyout options, and my personal favorite, locating start-up funding.

Working these time-consuming steps causes many would-be entrepreneurs to throw in the towel, believe it or not! How many friends and relatives do you know who have talked for years about quitting their jobs and starting their own businesses? Among them, how many do you know who’ve actually done it?

If someone does take the bold step to start a new company, have they taken the time to consider all possible scenarios? Will they buy a facility, rent one, or operate their enterprise from home? What’s the plan if they don’t initially sell enough product? What if they sell too much? Your imagination might be your most valuable planning tool. If it’s a new concept, you don’t have experience as a guide, and it’s probably the best way to prepare. Play devil’s advocate and consider as many potential curveballs as possible. Great foresight is required to anticipate what to do if and when these problems arise.

The research, filing or incorporation papers, lining up suppliers, buying equipment, renting a facility, etc., takes months of work – months of work for which no one is getting paid. This is daunting for anyone, especially if you’re leaving behind a steady paycheck. You can do the research and planning to launch your new business after hours and on weekends, but that will delay your vision coming to fruition.

Becoming inspired
With Shelly and Christy, we began our concept-development talks in September, and we officially opened for business February 1. Five months of due-diligence research before opening a business might seem excessive, but conducting market research, addressing logo and brand development, and researching and purchasing equipment and consumables must be handled carefully. We’d originally targeted a December 1 start date, but the necessary steps made that unrealistic.

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The girls were chomping at the bit to get started and make money, but to invest cash, time and energy into a new venture without being fully prepared would be a grave mistake. My dad always taught me that if something’s worth doing, its worth doing right!

Starting in September, the three of us received many family suggestions for the name, and we finally settled on Inspired Ink. We thought it conveyed the medium in which they would work, and it denotes creativity, a vital component of our vision.

Once we’d adopted the name, we hired Jason Wissig (the lead graphic designer for Wrap This! Ink) and we moved on to the “fun” part of creating our logo. Well, we thought it was going to be fun, but several days of revisions tested our patience a bit. Sometimes I had to say to myself, “Just let the girls win this time, Dale.”

After we determined the name and logo, we completed the legal paperwork to incorporate and filed it with the state. We used Legalzoom.com to facilitate the filing process. It cost us $400, but having it handle the filings with the appropriate government offices made it more than worth it. They billed in three installments, which made it even easier. We obtained a resale-tax-ID number and an occupational license.

And, of course, they required an address. That created another discussion. At first, we thought we could handle the business from one of our homes. After all, how much space could it take to print backdrops, roll them up and ship them?

Well, it wasn’t quite that simple. As many of you know, inkjet printers require 240V of power (the same type of heavy-duty electrical plugs needed for clothes dryers). None of us were willing to have that much power rerouted through our houses to run a printer. This presented a minor setback, because we hadn’t initially planned for the expense and maintenance of opening a new facility.

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But, we didn’t let this derail our plans. Our realtor helped us find a relatively small place – we thought we wouldn’t need more than 1,000 sq. ft. This delayed our opening by a month.

In the next column, we’ll address the organizational process of opening a new facility, as well as the decisions we made about the printer and materials we selected to set up shop. And, we’ll check in to see how Christy and Shelly are doing after several months in business.

See you next month! Stay Inspired!