PPB February 2021

SENTIMENTS PPAI 708476 Shoreline Pro Products PPAI 791229 ShoutOut Promotions PPAI 790742 South Coast Promos PPAI 791930 Specialized Resources PPAI 577950 STAFFORD PRINTING PPAI 681975 Tandem Marketing Strategies PPAI 792018 The Business Factory PPAI 791417 ThePrintingCo, Inc. PPAI 790717 Tique PPAI 791438 Tony Wilson & Associates PPAI 734841 Tony’s Signs and Printing PPAI 791502 Voltige Communication PPAI 746776 Whoru, Inc. PPAI 792504 Windy City Promos PPAI 791159 Yetees Design Screenprint PPAI 791368 Suppliers Candy Sense, Inc. PPAI 792038 Everything Legwear PPAI 792497 Glow Promotions PPAI 678755 Infinity Headwear PPAI 791471 NEW MEMBER SPOTLIGHT How did your company get its start? Like many Bay Area businesses, Merch Monster started in a garage. I needed a change from my career in IT project management and decided to revisit my passion for making physical products. A few years prior I had started an online t-shirt company, and worked with many screen printers. There were numerous challenges including non-existent customer service, lack of quality control and unpredictable delivery times. It made me realize that there was an opportunity to improve the screen- printing experience. So I decided to start a screen-printing company committed to selling high-quality products with outstanding customer service. I took the Ryonet Screen Printing Experience class and bought a 6/4 Rototex manual press and dryer off of Craigslist for $1,000. After we moved from my garage into a shared warehouse, our screen- printing business grew rapidly at a rate of 30 percent month over month, At times it was extremely challenging to keep up with the pace of such a fast- growing business. We were printing thousands of t-shirts a day in our tiny 1,000-square- foot space and quickly outgrew our starter home. Just a year and a half later, thanks to the support of our fantastic customers, I was able to move Merch Monster into our current 6,500-square-foot warehouse adjacent to downtown Oakland. Moving was a lot of work, but our new space allows us to continue to grow the business And here we are, more than $5 million later. What’s your favorite thing about being in the promotional products industry? Helping companies create experiences through physical products, which then create lasting memories for the recipient. Why did you join PPAI? Because Bill Petrie [managing partner of promo industry business services firm brandivate] told me to! LOL! I wanted to expand a little bit beyond the DistributorCentral setup I’m currently using. Mike Chong Owner Merch Monster Oakland, California PPAI 679141, D5 | FEBRUARY 2021 | 77 CONNECT