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The stories of how bootstrapped businesses go from $0 to $250k in annual revenue
When I started my entrepreneurial
journey, there was one founder that
I really admired out of the gate.
He had these like legendary stories
about sleeping in boats to sell his
t-shirts, and at the time he was just
starting to run his business, My Great
Lake, full-time right after graduation.
And for me, that was the dream
to be able to work on your
business full-time post-grad.
That was the dream.
And today, Kylen Blom is now a good
friend and someone I still really admire.
He's now the founder of Silkscreen
Marketing, an art focused production
studio in Holland, Michigan, where he is
built an incredible studio that that takes
your normal like swag items, particularly
T-shirts that usually are T-shirts
that you like, probably go to sleep in.
But with his creative design team, he's
actually made them, make them like some
of the best t-shirts and t-shirts that you
wanna pull outta laundry and immediately
wear, they become your favorite t-shirts.
So in this deep dive, we'll explore
how a college pitch competition led to
him sleeping in the boats around the
Great Lakes, how his small team competes
with the giants and how Kylen and his
team think about growth in a different
way than I think most businesses do.
Let's dive in.
Kylen got started at the same
college that I got started in,
in Hope College, which is a small
Christian college based in Holland,
Michigan with about 3,400 students.
And at the time, hope was just getting
kind of started into entrepreneurship.
They were like dabbling in it and whatnot.
And Kylen was one of the very
first students to really do
something larger at Hope.
And one of the ways they were kind of
helping to seed entrepreneurship within
Hope was through these pitch competitions.
But instead of me explaining how these
like pitch competitions were really
valuable and kind of kickstarted
a lot of different entrepreneurial
journeys, here's Kylen to explain.
I was doing idea pitch competitions
around campus right as they were
getting started, and it was like the.
Grand prize was, you know, a $200 cash
card, which was groceries for a month.
So I just came in and pitched all
sorts of ideas and had a blast with it.
And one of the judges came to me with
this whole concept of t-shirts for
each of the specific Great Lakes.
And I was like, that's kind of cool.
And I was like, this
is a perfect excuse to.
Travel and also do a startup.
And so that's kind of where
it got going is just that.
Why not?
Let's try it for a summer and if it
doesn't work, the worst thing that happens
is we had a great time cruising around
and asked a couple of friends if they
wanted to join and you know, they're
just like, yeah, what's the catch?
I was like, no catch.
We're just going to.
Drive around the Great Lakes and stay as
close to the water as we can and end up
where we end up and sleep, where we sleep.
And people just loved it.
And everyone we talked to along
the way loved the stories.
I mean, we were cash poor.
I mean every dollar we had was
invested in getting t-shirts printed.
'cause we weren't printing them ourselves.
We had to batch order them.
And the more you order, the cheaper they
are per shirt, the better our margin.
And so we were just going around
town to town trading t-shirts for
a beer and a burger kind of thing.
And they, people loved it.
You know, we pull into Leland and walk
through Fishtown and it's like, Hey, the,
the cheese shop, we've got a T-shirt if
you can get us a sandwich and a beer.
And he is like, I can't ring that up,
but I'll, I'll do it, I'll take it.
I think we were in almost 30 retail
locations by the end of those two
summers, and it was like very successful.
I did very little direct
to customer sales.
It was mostly just other businesses,
uh, which made it a lot easier to
justify than buying a press myself.
so it's kind of a crazy story.
He was really just like, Hey, like,
that's grocery money for the month.
And all of a sudden though, he's like
sleeping on boats and traveling the Great
Lakes and trying to just get all these
different t-shirts into all the different
retailers around the Great Lakes.
Now If you're not from the Midwest,
you might be thinking like, why?
Why does this idea have any appeal?
Well, if you're from the
Midwest, like typically, right?
You have a lot of pride typically
around your state or maybe your
hometown, like just the locations.
There's a lot of pride in being
like, Hey, I'm from Michigan, right?
One of the jokes that gets thrown
my way is you always know, like
if someone's from Detroit, and
that's because they've already.
Told you, and yes, I am guilty
of this, but you know what?
Screw it.
Go Tigers.
And I hope the Yankees lose every game.
Anyways, Kylen was able to then take
this idea, create the shirts, right,
and then go to all these different
retailers across the Great Lakes, and
as he mentioned, right, they got over
30 retailers, and that's a pretty decent
scale that allowed Kylen then to go buy
the equipment, to actually start producing
the shirts himself rather than having to
order them from a, a secondary vendor.
And you would think if you have the
right equipment, like printing on
t-shirts, can't be that hard, could it?
Well, here's Kylen to explain some
of the product issues they had out of
the gate and how they overcame them.
I bought a press and a dryer and
exposure unit all of the basics on
like a Friday and brought it all to
the barn behind my parents' house.
Uh, just.
Figured out how to screen print.
And this was when there's like, this
will date me certainly, but like YouTube
had five how to screen print videos
and they were all for like massive
machines coming out of the manufacturer.
And there was no like,
Hey, this is how you do it.
Online tutorials, like nothing.
It was like, okay, so let's.
Let's try see what happens.
And it took me all
weekend next to no sleep.
Got the order of shirts done,
brought it up to Ludington.
I came back with like half of the
shirts 'cause the shop owner was just
like, I can't, no, this is, this isn't
straight, this isn't aligned correctly.
And then even more of those shirts
came back from customers after,
like I put it through the wash and.
All of the ink just disappeared.
And so he is like, dude, you gotta,
you have a quality problem here.
I was like, I have very
many quality problems here.
Uh, so ended up, you know, figuring it
out, you know, it's gotta go through
the dryer at a certain temperature for
the ink to stay and the exposure unit.
Has to be a very specific time.
Otherwise your lines get blurred
and you've gotta keep your screens
in a certain way, in a certain
tightness for everything to line up.
And so we, you know, figured it
out and, uh, just had a lot of.
Late nights and crazy times.
I was using a, a closet sized
bathroom to expose all of my screens.
I had to run a garden hose from
the outside through the window
to spray it off in the shower.
There was just emulsion everywhere.
It was, it was great.
We had a blast do in it, and then
I ended up living upstairs of that
barn area, so I had roommates and.
An employee at the time and an intern,
and it would just just be like five or six
of us hanging out there, printing shirts.
Yeah.
Doing whatever.
And it was, it was great.
And it was fun.
It wasn't financially successful,
but it was, it was a blast.
It was like, yeah, it, I liked this a lot.
after figuring out all the different
product issues and really kind of taking
My Great Lake to a pretty decent spot,
Kylen decided to actually sell it to
a larger apparel company in Michigan.
And so that way he can move on to like new
ideas and ventures and basically write the
incentive to, to get grocery money turned
into a business that was acquirable.
That's a pretty decent
outcome, I would say.
But even after selling the business,
right, Kylen kept one of the screen
printers from the sale, so that way
he could still be building shirts at
some or making shirts at some point.
And he did just that after, even
after selling My Great Lake, he was
working on like different various
projects because people were asking
to kind of do kind of side projects.
He might be making a few dozen shirts,
designing a new logo, websites.
He was kind of like this, like digital
handyman for a lot of different
people, and that led to what is now.
Silkscreen Marketing his current
company and through all the
different various projects.
Right?
He kind of like.
Built a pretty interesting niche
and that is, you know, he does some
marketing and design work and yet now
he has a team alongside him, but he
also has found a kind of a sweet spot
of being able to print shirts for local
businesses, the sweet spot, being about
50 to 300 different custom shirts.
And that really makes him pretty unique.
But instead of me explaining, here's Kylen
to explain kind of this niche and how they
are able then to compete at a, in a pretty
competitive market in t-shirt making.
we're not the shop for high volume
because we do everything by hand.
You know, there's the fully automatic
presses out there that will just.
Ripped through thousands
of shirts in a day.
And we're not that shop.
So if people come to us with a quote for
3000 shirts, we're, the first thing we
tell them is, we'll give you a quote.
We would love this business, but you'll
probably get a cheaper product elsewhere.
Our sweet spot and where we're price
competitive is we can do setups fast.
Whereas the big shops, that's not.
Forte.
So if we're in the like 50 to
a hundred shirt or 50 to 300
shirt range, that's like perfect.
Another value prop that we have is
that people can come in and it's like
they can get their hands on a sample.
They can see.
The process.
They can understand when we say how
screen printing works, like you can
either do color blocks and we can do
up to six different color blocks, or we
can do CMYK and here's the difference.
And let them feel it.
Let them see it.
And they, they also know that there's
like an expert behind the order.
When you do the big
online ones, it's just.
A computerized system that spits out
a file and assigns it to somebody
doing their thing on a line, you
know, it's, it's manufacturing
and this is more of like a craft.
It's hand done, it's hand printed.
We're looking at and holding
and feeling every shirt.
And if it's not perfect,
we're replacing it.
Being actually physically
in town is a big advantage.
I think the design ability that we
have as a shop, uh, specifically
Blake, is like unmatched, right?
You walk through downtown and you look
at all these different shops and half
of 'em are selling designs that he's
made, and you walk around hope, right?
Yeah.
And it's all the campus ministry
shirts that it's just like.
Our, our fingerprints are everywhere.
Yeah.
And people, once they get their hands
on our shirts, uh, are drawn to us
because of that quality element.
You know, they're used to a Gilden
ultra cotton and we're putting a
soft blend in their hands and they're
like, oh my gosh, I love this shirt.
I wear it.
It's the first shirt I pull out of the
laundry when, as soon as it's clean.
It's like, that's what we want.
We do get people coming back because
they say like, I need more of this shirt.
So it's pretty interesting
to see that like they've.
Built a really solid business.
And also Kylen mentioned, right,
that most of their business
is now just repeat customers.
They have some new clients that kind
of come in here and there, but because
of the trust and their reliability and
their, like their quality of work, like
they just don't need to have this like
huge amount of new customer acquisition.
And today, Silkscreen Marketing does
about $300,000 in annual revenue,
and they do it pretty consistently.
But one of the things that's really
interesting about Silkscreen Marketing
and Kylen here is actually their kind
of strategy and vision about how they go
about kind of growing or actually maybe
not even growing Silkscreen Marketing.
And instead of me kinda explaining their
approach to all of that, here's Kylen
to explain their vision and strategy.
I think a lot of that depends on the
team that we have here at any given
time, like we've got three full-time
people plus myself and we're every
couple of months checking in and
having that conversation of what.
What's next?
Where do we want to go?
What do we want to do?
Who do we wanna be?
You know?
So sometimes it's like, let's get a
letter, press and be able to do like
traditional letter printing, like business
cards, wedding invites, art prints.
Like sweet, let's do that.
What kind of things do we wanna
do on the production side that.
We maybe haven't been doing.
Yeah.
So, and now it's hats, right?
We can do patches and we can do all
sorts of different things with them.
And we've got the letter press
next it'll be embroidery.
So we can do like sewing in Yeah.
Actual elements.
So right now it feels like there's a,
a focus on expanding on the production
side, uh, which is cool, but I think
there is also capacity to expand on.
Yeah, the web and design side.
There's seasons of change always.
Last summer started a boat rental
company in Saugatuck, and so a
lot of my time was doing that.
Yeah.
Um, been the last couple of
years building a software.
To manage boat rentals with,
you know, a fully remote team.
So a lot of my time has
been spent doing that.
Not a lot of it.
And a lot of my time is spent
here at the shop, but not always
working on shop specific things.
We've got a whole formula of
things we could offer, right?
We've got the print mobile to go and yeah.
Screen print.
Onsite at different events, how
much do we wanna focus on that?
How are we going to dedicate
time and energy to do that?
Because it's hard to do that when
everybody is working full time and
then an event on the weekend is.
Extra.
You know, it's hard to
always be excited to do that.
So do we find a intern that's
willing to kinda take that on?
But now somebody has to coach the
intern and it's like, versus how
much do we wanna enjoy summer?
It's just an ever
changing, evolving, yeah.
Mix of what do we have the energy for?
What are we passionate about,
what do we want to be doing?
You know, do we want to offer.
Some limited retail out
of the front of the shop.
Do we wanna move to a new location and
showcase more of what we can do and
put our press in the front window of
a storefront downtown and people walk
by and see us print shirts and we're
a workshop that's, you know, cool and
gritty and can do web and design and
it's, yeah, where we'll be in five years.
I, I don't know.
It really depends on.
The team and what makes the
most sense and what's, uh, a
risk we can take financially.
Uh, having bootstrapped everything
up to this point is kind of like,
yeah, it's gotten us this far.
Let's, let's keep it going.
And, you know, it maybe doesn't
mean hockey stick stick growth, but.
Yeah, I don't know if everybody
really wants to, you know, break
that $500,000 barrier and now we've
a much bigger company with a lot more
that has to get done and now more
people and now more management and
more admin, and that means somebody
somewhere has to spend less time on.
Doing the fun things.
I find this approach to strategy
and vision really fascinating, and
I actually think it's really cool.
Right?
It's not just like growth
for growth sake, right?
As Kylen mentioned, right?
They could go do $500,000 in annual
revenue, I think if they wanted, but like.
That really takes the fun out of it.
That really kind of takes the, like,
the why of why they're doing this.
And really what they want to be able
to do right, is build like a steady
like way of living, but also like
get that like creative fulfillment.
And by doing this where it's like, hey,
we have a little bit of revenue and a
little bit of resources to invest in these
little things like letter press or like
a machine to make hats or patches, right?
Like they have the resources to do that
and then give 'em like that creative
fulfillment of like, Ooh, this is
a new product, this is a new thing.
But also that gives them the ability to
grow the business, potentially, right?
'cause maybe like all their
different clients, like actually
they want hats, they want patches,
they want these different things.
And I think that's a
really healthy approach.
So that's the high level story of
Silkscreen Marketing and really Kylen's
kind of entrepreneurial journey so far.
What I wanna do now is actually go
through the growth strategies that Kylen
has used to build Silkscreen Marketing
to over two 50 K in annual revenue.
And to me there's two different
growth strategies that Kylen
has been mostly focused on.
And the first one is.
Relationships and his relationships.
Kylen's relationships are pretty visible.
If you go into downtown Holland,
you're gonna see pretty much a ton of
different designs that his team and
himself have designed and produced.
If you go into a store like the,
the local coffee shop Lemonjellos.
You're gonna notice, like Kylen's
designed the t-shirts in there
and all sorts of things, right?
And you might not even know that
this Kylen and his team, but it's
a really indicative, right, of like
how deep their relationships are
in downtown and how they've really
cultivated a really strong network.
And Kylen has done this
in a few different ways.
First, right?
Was like with the My Great Lake
t-shirts where you just kinda walked
into stores and those kind of things.
But I'll talk about that in a second.
But also Kylen mentioned, right?
He'd go to like the networking events.
He'd go to like the young
professionals groups.
He would just network like crazy and
build a lot of strong relationships
within the downtown area and West
Michigan, and specifically Holland, right?
It's a good sized town, but
it's like not the biggest town.
So by really like building a really strong
network and being like known for being
like the t-shirt guy essentially, right?
It really helps him to build.
A lot of strong relationships very
quickly and also like it just kind of,
you get to build a really robust client
base and as kind of, you've kind of
seen throughout this entire deep dive.
Like Kylen's been at this for over
a decade and he doesn't take on
too, like he takes on new clients,
but most of his businesses actually
repeat business from the clients
he's had for a really long time.
Kylen's a really good example.
If you network really strongly, especially
in your local area and can really build
clients that are just like, are doing
repeat business all the time and you
build a lot of trust with them and do
high quality work, like you can kind of
stop doing marketing at at at extent.
Especially if you're happy with
the revenue that you're doing
and the lifestyle you're living.
Like you can essentially kind of turn
off the marketing and just go to work.
And I think for a lot of founders that's.
Pretty darn attractive.
Growth strategy number two is
cold outreach and cold outreach,
like we mentioned like at the very
beginning of the deep dive, right?
Like Kylen was going around to
all the different retailers.
He was going in person to go sell
these my great lake T-shirts and Right.
That worked out.
You got over 30 retailers
that all worked out.
But that process I think taught Tyler,
Kylen a ton of different skills.
One right it, it made him
comfortable with selling.
But second also helped him build a ton
of relationships with these retailers.
He got a lot of the local communities,
even all across the Great Lakes.
He built a ton of relationships
with these people.
And also right now, like all
of that credibility he like
has really compounded, right?
So if there's like a new shop
in town or maybe there's a
new business in town, right?
If Kylen is meeting them at a
networking event or maybe he just
like is meeting that, he's getting
introduction to them, it's super easy
for him to have credibility like.
Out of the gate.
And it's not really cold outreach, right?
Especially if you're gonna be like,
yeah, I see all the designs, like the
credibility him and his team have and be
able to show up in person and do that.
Like that's not cold outreach.
That's pretty warm outreach.
So that's the story of Silkscreen
Marketing and Kylen Blom.
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