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Thinking about starting up…need advice
Everybody always tells me I should do logos and signs. I am not sure about that…but this is why I am here. I would like to know if it is worth it to lease equipment at first so that I can see how I’d do. I’d like to specialize the automotive side of it all and cater to commercial fleets and such. I’d like to do wraps/lettering/printing/cutting/window screens and maybe even some hats and shirts. Not too sure about the hats and shirts part though. I would also like to design some graphics kits for ATV’s and such. I would most likely lease commercial space.
Any advice on equipment or anything would be greatly appreciated.
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11 Replies
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Anybody?
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It’s a very open question. There is lots of advice on these forums – best to browse through them then if you have any specific questions you need answers to ask away and I’m sure you’ll get plenty of answers.
Good luck 😀
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I’m not entirely sure about leasing equipment, most suppliers will do hire purchase, and probably leasing too. The trouble with starting up to see how things go is that it will cost a small fortune just to see if it’s what you want to do. It all depends on how long you wish to try everything for I guess. A decent cutter costs in the region of £1000 – £2000, a good wide format printer anywhere over £6000 I think, T Shirt Press is about £1000, Laminators are in the region of £2-3000…. at a guess you could probably lease these for a fraction of the purchase cost per year, but then you need to think about how much it will cost to cancel your contracts if you decide not to go ahead. Also, most commercial premises seem to want you to sign up for 3 or 5 years, round my way anyway. They seem to dislike people who need to see how they do before they commit long term.
I started with a second hand 24" vinyl cutter that cost around £1000 and moved a little into the printing side of things by buying a colour laser for about £1800. The only thing I’ve done differently is set up my business whilst still in employment, so I’ve paid for everything in full without having to worry about making a profit just yet. I’m sure some of the other more established users on here may be able to point you in a better direction than I can as I’m still fairly new to the sign business in terms of experience. I’m waiting to get into printing and wrapping until I’m better established, rather than overspend now.
Good makes for Cutters (in my opinion) are Roland (older models) and Graphtec. Printers, I’d probably say the Roland Versacamm as I compared a number of printers recently in terms of running costs and maintenance. You will need a laminator if you are doing wraps / large format printing for outside. As with everything there are cheaper machines available on eBay, but I’d personally steer clear. You usually get what you pay for!
Hope this is a little help?
Adam
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I am willing to spend up to $8,000 for startup. I have a job that would give me the winter off and then be flexible with me come next spring to allow for my sign thing to grow.
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Why don’t you outsource the printing and get urself a vinyl cutter? If your getting the work to make a profit by having your own printer then buy it. If not you can still do cam cut vinyl.
Sounds like it makes more sense to me at first.
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quote jxuereb:“cam cut vinyl”
What is "cam cut vinyl?"
I hear you on just starting out. I would open in a large metro area with lots of car dealers and all kinds of other business right there. The strip is about 5 miles long and has lots of potential as I would be the only guy on the strip doing this. I just wanted to offer something else besides cut letters and such to the car dealers.
I definitely wanna target commercial truck lettering, dealer window decals for sales and promotions and such.
Any suggestions of something else I can bring to the table to offer without getting into jumbo up front costs?
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CAM = Computer Aided Manufacturing
You could get a heat press and start doing t-shirts as well. Printing though does open a lot of opportunities.
You have to start somewhere as well. One piece of advice I can offer is don’t try and be everything. Concentrate your efforts on one specific area and when that is setup maybe incorporate the next.
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The only advice I can give you is keep your start-up costs down as much as you can. There is no point in saddling yourself with debt at the outset.
You only need a couple of bad payers in the first months and bang, the bank is on your back like flys on shite. Covering overheads from day one can be a mistake and many businesses fail because of this. Starting a business is easy. Keeping it going, that’s the hard part. Good luck.Karl.
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Like Phill has said it is a very open question, what is it you do just now and who and why do people tell you that you should do signs and logos?
If you don’t have any experience of applying vinyl then you might want to leave things like wraps until you have a bit of experience, some people make it look easy and it is not as easy as it looks.Like Karl has said you need to keep your overheads down as much as possible when starting out unless you have a big wad to pay all the bills and live while you learn the business and get some paying customers.
Don’t think just because there is an area with businesses and no sign company it will be easy money, it may well be that there is no sign company because there is not enough work to make it pay.
Certainly in the UK car dealerships can be a real problem to do work for, they want everything at rock bottom prices and show no loyalty at all so even if you do start doing some work for them there is no guarantee you will keep them as customers. -
I think I’ll start small…just get a cutter and contract out all my printing needs. There is a 2 day class I can take here in the USA by vehiclewraps.com that teaches wraps. I will look into that after I get me some experience.
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I’ve just started out by purchasing a cheap cutter. I had already been producing very small website logos on a small Roland cutter but people have been asking me to do bigger stuff for them. I’m not in it to make big money at the moment although I do enjoy it and could see myself going further in the future. I own a car enthusiasts website and a friend does also, so I have had a few very small jobs. This week I am supplying and fitting a few stickers to a friend’s car which is taking part in the Cannonball 8000 this week. It’s all small stuff and it’s very good for me as I need more experience applying the vinyl to the vehicles. My point is, that I am treating this as a hobby until I have gained enough experience and confidence to move on to bigger things. Vehicle wraps is not something I would consider until I have more experience.
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