Etsy Custom Apparel Printing with a Funny Twist – Troy Parker of GooberPrints

Founder

Troy Parker

United States

hidden

Full-time

Open to opportunities: Yes

Founder Socials

Business

GooberPrints

Physical Location - Country: United States

Location - Countries Operating: United States

6-10 (Small Business)

https://www.etsy.com/shop/GooberPrints

Business Type: Product

Category: Retail and Consumer Goods

Subcategory: Apparel and Fashion

Niche: Custom Printed Apparel

Segments: B2C and B2B

Structure: Private

Number of founders: 1

Business Socials

Financials verified via: Other Online Sources. Last Updated: January 17, 2025

$10K

Startup Costs (USD)

$500K - $1M

Annual Revenue (USD)

External Funding: No

Sales
Marketing

Platform

Shopify, Etsy

Business Book

  1. The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins

Productivity Tool or Tip

  1. AI tools that remove backgrounds from images

Innovative Product or Idea

  1. Printing Technology

Startup or Business

  1. Etsy

Best business advice

If you believe in your product and its quality, put in the hard work and share it with the world. Don’t let anyone tell you that creative industries aren’t profitable—if you work hard and are confident in your craft, you can prove them wrong.

INTERVIEW VIDEO (Length – 48:12)

PODCAST AUDIO

Intro

Troy Parker, founder of GooberPrints, shares his entrepreneurial journey from graphic design to establishing his own custom apparel printing business on Etsy. Troy discusses the initial challenges, like investing in the right printer, learning the intricacies of direct-to-garment (DTG) and direct-to-film (DTF) printing, and balancing a full-time job while growing a side hustle to meet significant life expenses. Troy also delves into his marketing strategies, including leveraging Etsy’s platform and the importance of excellent customer service.


Idea for a side hustle

Back in 2019, my wife and I were trying to start a family, and after some time, we realized we’d need to go through IVF. But the cost of IVF was steep, so we decided to start a side hustle to help cover those bills. I’ve always loved graphic design and had a passion for apparel printing, so I thought, “Why not combine the two?” We opened an Etsy store to sell custom printed apparel, hoping to make an extra $100 to $200 a month.

The first year was slow as we worked on finding the right products and audience, but in 2020, things took off. What started as a side hustle has now grown into something that takes up most of my time.

Types of Printers for Garments

When it comes to garment printing, there are two main options: DTG (Direct to Garment) and DTF (Direct to Film). While DTG printers can print on dark-colored garments by using a white base ink, I’ve found that DTF printing has taken off in the last 12-18 months and is actually my preferred method. DTF allows me to print on a wider range of items like hats, bags, pillows, and even school backpacks—not just t-shirts and sweatshirts.

What I love about DTF is that the prints are done on a film, which makes it easier to transfer onto various items. Plus, the quality is top-notch—there’s good stretchability and durability because it’s ink, not vinyl.

Instead of investing in a costly DTF printer, I partnered with a local print manufacturer. I design the prints, send them the gang sheets (a collection of designs), and they print and send them back to me. This route saves me from the headaches of maintaining an expensive printer—DTF printers can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $40,000, and they come with issues like clogged printheads and ink problems. By working with my trusted print partner, I get high-quality results without the stress, and I couldn’t be happier with their work.

Fast Turnarounds on Etsy

One of the best things about using a Direct to Garment (DTG) printer is how low-maintenance it is. I can take an order and have it ready to ship in just 3 to 4 minutes. Having the printer right here gives me the flexibility to turn orders around quickly, which is great for margins and customer satisfaction. Many of my clients appreciate this, especially when they need something urgently—like for a party in three days. I can confidently tell them, “No problem, I’ll have it ready this afternoon.” If you check out our Etsy reviews, you’ll see that fast turnaround is something we’re really proud of and always strive to deliver.

Sales Channels

Right now, Etsy is the only place I list and sell my products online. I’m in the process of building a standalone website with its own storefront, but for now, Etsy is where I focus my e-commerce sales. I really love Etsy because it brings customers to me, so I don’t have to worry about marketing—it’s a great platform for that.

In addition to Etsy, I also do a lot of local sales around the Northern suburbs of Chicago. I participate in farmer’s markets and do custom printed apparel for local businesses and events. I’ve worked with companies as small as five people, creating work shirts and other apparel. These local sales are growing steadily, and the exposure from the markets has been great for expanding the brand and building traction. So, it’s a combination of Etsy e-commerce sales and local market sales for now.

Differentiating in Apparel Printing

Etsy is a highly competitive marketplace, with tens of thousands of sellers, and over the past couple of years, the market has become even more saturated. This is partly due to more affordable, entry-level printers and the rise of drop shipping, where companies handle the printing and shipping while you focus on the storefront. These factors have increased the number of sellers in the apparel industry.

To set myself apart, I focus on the quality of my product and customer service. I’ve been on Etsy for a few years now, and I’ve built a solid reputation with over 11,000 sales and close to 3,000 five-star reviews. I let those numbers speak for themselves. I also make sure to respond quickly to customers, maintain transparency, and offer bulk discounts to keep things competitive. I believe if you have a great product and offer excellent customer service, success will follow.

Differentiating by niching down

I do worry about SEO sometimes, as I don’t fully understand all of it. I get the basics, like how listings that perform well get more visibility, while those that don’t perform as well get shown less. That said, I have confidence in my imagery, product details, and the strong reviews and sales I’ve built up.

To stand out on Etsy, I’ve really focused on niching down. I have over 200 listings, including more generic items like baby onesies and t-shirts, but I’ve also specialized in highly customized image printing—especially for pets and people’s faces. For example, customers can get their dog or cat on a t-shirt or baby onesie, or even put their uncle’s face on a onesie. There’s definitely less competition in these personalized niches compared to general apparel printing, so I’ve found a strong market there.

When competition increased, I focused on my niche, and it’s been working well for me. I just continue to do what I do best, and hope that the algorithms and SEO keep bringing customers to my store.

Seasonality

There’s definitely a seasonality to my business. I’ve learned that while we love every customer, some requests can be quite unusual or specific, like changing an image or text halfway through. That’s just part of the job, and every customer is different.

Christmas is by far the busiest season. The last week of November and the first two to three weeks of December account for about 80% of our annual revenue—it’s total mayhem! Father’s Day is another big one, especially for custom baby onesies featuring dads, with messages like “Happy Father’s Day” or “First Father’s Day.” While other holidays like Halloween may bring in a few extra sales, Christmas and Father’s Day are the real standouts for us.

Team

I’ve had help before, and I can’t say enough about how amazing my wife is. She really understands the sacrifices I make. I get up at 4 a.m. to print for a few hours, then take care of the boys and work my day job. When she gets home, she takes over with the boys so I can print for another five or six hours until midnight. It’s exhausting, but knowing it’s temporary makes it manageable.

She’s also an incredible partner, helping out with printing and packaging. When I get gift wrap orders, she’s the one who handles all the wrapping since I’m not great at it. We’ve definitely got a solid teamwork routine, especially during busy times. I’m so grateful for her support.

Marketing on Etsy

Right now, I use Etsy’s paid marketing option, where I pay a small daily fee to promote a few of my best-selling listings. I typically focus on my top three, which helps them reach a larger audience. But other than that, I don’t do much in terms of ads. Etsy does a great job of bringing in business organically, and we also have a lot of repeat customers who know where to find us.

When it comes to SEO, I keep my listing templates pretty consistent and focus on a few key listings that make up the bulk of our sales. I believe the key to success on Etsy is having great imagery and solid reviews. As long as those are in place, I’ve found that traction and sales will follow.

Dog tank and shirt combo

One of my best-selling items is definitely the dog tank and t-shirt combo. If you check out my Etsy store, it’s the second listing – it features a quirky photo of me wearing a shirt with my dog’s face on it, and vice versa. A few years ago, customers started requesting fun, personalized gifts like this, so I listed it. It’s been a hit ever since, and I can see from the back-end statistics just how popular it is.

Bulk Discounts

Yes, I definitely offer bulk discounts! Just a couple of hours ago, I had an order for 11 t-shirts from a bachelorette party, and they asked about a discount. While it’s not listed on Etsy, if someone messages me about bulk orders, I’m more than happy to accommodate. Since we’re printing the same design and sending it to the same location, shipping costs stay relatively the same, and the setup time for printing is a one-time cost, making it easier to offer discounts for larger orders. We do a lot of bulk orders and are always happy to help!

Shipping and Fulfillment

From start to finish, I handle everything in-house. Once a customer places an order, I design the product, get their approval, and then print it. After that, I package it and create the shipping label right here before sending it out. Everything, from the product creation to the shipping, is done in-house.

I offer free standard USPS ground shipping on all orders, and customers can choose to upgrade to priority or express shipping if they need it sooner. My goal is to ship all orders within one to two business days, which has earned great feedback from customers. Depending on where they are, shipping times vary—if they’re close to Chicago, they’ll receive it in one to two days, while those on the West Coast usually get it in three to five business days.

Once an order ships, Etsy sends the customer a tracking number and updates them on their package’s progress. I offer free shipping because, like many, I love the feeling of getting free shipping when I shop, and I want to give that same experience to my customers.

Free Shipping

I’ve been experimenting with two similar listings on my Etsy store—one with free shipping and one at a discounted price but with a shipping fee. Over the past four to six weeks, I’ve noticed that the free shipping listing is selling far more units than the one with a shipping charge. It’s clear that customers are drawn to the “free” offer, so I’ll likely stick with free shipping for all products moving forward.

Work-life balance

I ask myself this question regularly—where do I want to take Google Prints? It’s something I’ve been thinking about for the past couple of years. I love my full-time job and I also enjoy running Google Prints, so I’m really happy with the work-life balance I have right now. Of course, there’s always that drive to see my business grow, and I’m proud of how far it’s come. Back in 2019, I never imagined I’d reach over 10,000 sales, so I’m grateful for where I’m at.

That said, I do have goals to scale the business in the next few years and put more effort into growing it. But for now, I’m content with the balance I’ve created, especially with a young family—I’ve got a 2-year-old and a 3-year-old—and I cherish spending time with them. Busy seasons do mean more work, but I try to find time for family activities like bike rides or trips to the beach.

If I do decide to scale the business, I’d look into hiring help to make sure I can maintain that work-life balance with my wife and kids.

Other Marketplaces

There are other platforms, but none really compare to Etsy in terms of size, reach, and market share for custom products. I’ve seen some alternatives, but nothing quite matches Etsy’s reach. Sure, you could try selling on Amazon, but that limits the ability to offer custom printing.

Honestly, the business I’m getting through Etsy right now is at a great level. If I were to scale, I believe I could just expand my listings and options on Etsy to grow the business even further.

Mistakes made, lessons learned

One of my earliest orders still sticks with me, and it’s a lesson I’ll never forget. A friend of mine, who knew I was starting my business, wanted to be one of my first customers. He ordered six or seven custom t-shirts with an inside joke print on them. At the time, I was still getting the hang of my printer and inventory, and I was really nervous about making a mistake. I thought I had everything down, but I didn’t properly cure the ink.

I was using a print-and-press oven to cure the shirts, but I wasn’t pressing them firmly enough, so after one wash, the print started to disappear. I felt awful because my friend had paid for the shirts and shared them with others, only to have the quality fall short. Luckily, it was early in my journey, and since it was a friend, I could explain what happened, and he understood. I’m thankful for that and for the opportunity to learn from the mistake. That one still sticks with me, though—it’s a reminder to always double-check every step!

Rapid Fire Segment

Book recommendation: Although I’m not a big reader, The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins helped me navigate investing while building my business. For podcasts, Side Hustle Nation and Bigger Pockets Money are my top picks for entrepreneur stories.

Innovative product: I’m excited about the fast-paced innovations in printing technology, especially how new printers are being released every month with enhanced features. It’s exciting to see how the technology is evolving.

Productivity tool: AI tools that remove backgrounds from images have been a game-changer. It saves a lot of time when I’m editing photos for custom prints, especially with high order volumes.

Business I admire: Etsy has been a huge platform for my business and so many others. It’s a fantastic marketplace for creatives to sell custom products and reach a global audience.

Peer entrepreneur: A good friend has been an invaluable mentor, especially when it comes to the business side of things. His advice and motivation keep me pushing forward.

Best business advice: If you believe in your product and its quality, put in the hard work and share it with the world. Don’t let anyone tell you that creative industries aren’t profitable—if you work hard and are confident in your craft, you can prove them wrong.

Best Business Advice

The best business advice I can give is this: if you have a product you’re confident in and believe is of high quality, put in the hard work, share it with the world, and enjoy the process. Don’t let anyone discourage you—whether you’re an artist, graphic designer, or in any creative field. If you produce great work and stay dedicated, you can break through and prove the doubters wrong.


Episode Summary

Troy Parker, founder of Goober Prints, a business specializing in direct to garment and direct to film printing for custom apparel. Troy discusses his background in graphic design, how he started Goober Prints in 2019 as a side hustle to cover IVF costs, and eventually grew it into a thriving business. He explains the advantages and challenges of different printing methods, the seasonal nature of sales, and the importance of customer service. Troy also shares insights on maintaining high product quality, effective use of Etsy for sales, and navigating market competition. Finally, he reflects on work-life balance and plans for future business growth.

Interview Transcript

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Hey there entrepreneurs, my name is Sushant and welcome to Treptalks. This is the show where I interview successful e commerce entrepreneurs, business executives, and thought leaders and ask them questions about their business story. And also dive deep into some of the strategies and tactics that they have used to start and grow their businesses.

And today I’m really excited to welcome Troy Parker to the show. Troy is the founder of Goober Prints. Goober Prints utilizes direct to garment and direct to film printing to create custom colored prints on onesies. Tees and sweatshirts. And today I’m going to ask Troy a few questions about his entrepreneur journey and some of the strategies and tactics that he has used to start and grow his business.

Now, before we dive into this interview, if you enjoy this kind of content, please make sure to hit the like and subscribe button. And for more content like this, please visit our website, Treptalks. com. And with that, Troy, [00:01:00] welcome again to the show. And thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.

Thanks for having me, mate. I’m looking forward to chatting. So I was reading a little bit about you and I, I believe I read on your, uh, page, Etsy page, that you have a long background in graphic designing and that’s, that’s how you kind of got into this form of printing. So maybe you can talk a little bit about your background.

What were you doing before starting this business and how kind of you came up with the idea of starting Google Prints?

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: Yeah. Well, thanks again for having me mate. Um, so to kind of start the journey way back when, um, I moved to America to go to college, uh, when I was 18 and in college, I studied graphic design and fine arts.

Um, so one of my later college career projects was, um, a screen printing class and I decided to do an apparel run as one of my projects. Um, so that was my first, [00:02:00] Uh, in depth experience into apparel printing. Um, but as far as the graphic design side of things, I’ve been designing logos and, um, using graphic design for mock ups with my full time job.

Um, doing signage mock ups, all that, any different types of graphic design. I’ve been doing that for, golly, probably 15 years. So finished college, um, started a full time job in Iowa for a signage company. Uh, still work for that same company today. Um, so basically my initial job in the design world with that was designing, um, graphics, signage, window films, metal films, uh, wall graphics, mainly for schools and colleges.

Um, and then on the side, I was doing logo designs for a lot of small businesses, um, from my hometown in Australia. So I did that for probably five years until I decided to start Gooberprints, which [00:03:00] was in 2019. So

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: this is, uh, so 2009, almost five years now. So this, do you consider this as a side hustle?

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: Yeah, so that’s how it started. So, um, it’s a very, it’s a long story. I’ll condense it for you. But, um, back in 2019, um, my wife and I, we were trying for a while to fall pregnant and we decided we would need to go through the IVF route. And so after our initial consultations, we realized that, you know, the bills for IVF are quite hefty.

So we decided a side hustle would be something we would need to kind of cover those bills. So I love graphic design. Um, I love that apparel printing project that I did. So I thought why not tie two together and we can start, um, an Etsy store and just sell some custom printed apparel, um, with the goal of.

Hopefully making an extra a hundred bucks a month, 200 bucks a month, you know, something additional on top. So [00:04:00] we started that as a 19 and, um, it, the first year was quite slow. The first year we’ll try and get traction. See what, um, what was selling, what wasn’t selling, who to market to, what to post. Um, and then in 2020, it just boomed.

And now what was a side hustle is starting to take up majority of my time.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: You know, uh, garment printing, especially like t shirt printing and, um, these kinds of items, like this is, I believe this has been, um, In, in market since e commerce started, like this is something that I guess, you know, has been a constant thing and I’m sure, you know, there’s marketplaces where you can do it.

But to me, it seems like the barrier to entry in this space, like, if you want to do it on your own, you have to buy a printer, right? And, um, That’s probably a major investment up front. So can you talk a little bit about when you started it? Like, did you [00:05:00] kind of go out, buy your own printer? Or did you, were you working with some other printers to, to have the, you know, because in the beginning you don’t know how many orders you’re going to get, right?

So put like 10, in the printer. That’s a big risk. So can you talk a little bit about your own journey? Like, did you buy the printer up front or were you doing something different? Yeah.

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: So that was the, that was all, you know. Spending money and investing money in your business is always the scariest part of starting a business.

So that was the first step. So I researched and analyzed and broke down tons of different printers to see which style of printing I want to do, you know, what kind of printer, what brand I want to go with. And DTG, which is direct to garment printing. Um, the printer specifically that I bought, Co brand printer.

And that it was a entry level printer. It was 5, 000. So, you know, you can get garment printers that are 15, [00:06:00] 20, 25 plus. So I went with an entry level printer with the mindset of. Let’s use this as a base printer. If business booms, then we can scale accordingly with the sales. Um, so I bought my little Ricoh printer, got it in here and just hit the ground testing prints, seeing what works, what doesn’t work, um, contrast settings, all that fun stuff.

And I went from there and, and, um, I have the same printer today. It’s, it’s just over there. It’s not the exact same one, so. I bought the Ricoh IR100 first. That one lasted me about four years and then it malfunctioned. So I bought the exact same printer again. It’s an absolute workhorse. Um, they say the machine, it’s not made for the, um, workload that I put it through, but it’s, it’s done great.

It’s still firing well today. So that’s the DTG printer that I do use. Um, there are some holdbacks with that specific printer. I won’t bore everyone with the printer specifics, but [00:07:00] With that printer, I can only print on light colored garments and they have to be at least 50 percent cotton based garments as well.

So I can’t print black t shirts or colored t shirts or colored sweatshirts or hats. Basically I can only print what I can feed into the printer. Um, and the inks will, it will print directly into the garment. So you can’t feel any print, you can’t crack or peel. So that’s what DTG printing is.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Wow. Very, very interesting.

And, um, and you, and you’re saying that you’re still using this printer, like the more expensive ones? What, what can they do? They, they can print, I’m assuming they can print on, um, over the garment, right? Like if, if you have a black T-shirt, they can, they, they are actually printing on the garment.

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: Yeah. So the quick, the quick way about it.

So DTG direct garment, if you wanna get a printer that can print on any colored garment, say blacks or dark colors. You can get a DTG printer that has a white base ink and that’ll layer the base ink over the top coat of ink. [00:08:00] Um, so you can go that route. Personally, I kind of saw a merge in the market where probably the last 12 to 18 months DTF printing, which is called direct to film printing has just skyrocketed.

I personally believe above DTG. The reason being is that director film, you can put it on a lot of other things other than t shirts and sweatshirts. Um, I do hats. I do bags. I do golly pillows, tote bags. Um, we did my kids school backpacks. You can do anything with DTG, DTF, sorry. Because you don’t actually have to feed it into a printer.

You’re printing the inks onto a film and then transing those transferring those films onto a garment. Um, and it’s a quite, um, it’s good quality as well because it’s inks, not vinyl. So there’s stretchability, there’s durability. Um, and it’s very easy to work with. So I do run DTF prints now. I actually, instead of investing in a DTF [00:09:00] printer, I actually I partnered with a local company and I use them as my print manufacturer.

So I’ll do the designing on my end. I send the gang sheets, which is basically a bunch of projects nested into one, send it to them to print. They print, they send it back to me. Then I’ll chop it up and actually adhere it to the garment. Um, the reason I go that route with my DTF side is a high quality DTF machine is 30, 000, 40, 000, and it also comes with a lot of headaches as far as cleaning, incongulation, um, the white ink is a very tough one, it can get stuck in the line, you can damage printheads, it’s a full time job just maintaining one of these machines.

You can get base level ones for between five, 10, 15 grand, but the, the quality just isn’t as good as, as the good printers. So I found a company. I went and toured their office and looked at their printers and their printers are six. Bigger [00:10:00] printers and the quality is amazing. So that’s on that side of my business.

That’s where I moved from with them. And I couldn’t, couldn’t be happy with their work.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So I guess the big difference there is really in the margins, right? Like when you have your own printer, you’re, you are basically, um, in control of your margins and when you’re outsourcing it to a different printer, I’m assuming they’re taking a bigger portion of that, uh, profit margin for you.

Or is it still?

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: It’s quite cost effective from them. So for the DTF standpoint, um, basically what they charge is they charge a square inch rate as to what they print. So on my end, I’ll basically mark that up into my product. So I charge more for a black t shirt compared to a white t shirt. To cover for those margins.

Um, so on my end, I don’t see a massive difference in profitability from a black t shirt to a white t shirt that I can print in house. So that’s what I do. Um, but it’s also one of those things too. I’m happy to eat that cost rather than [00:11:00] have the headache of a machine here and deal with the maintenance issues.

It would be a different story if Guba prints was my full time job, then I would go ahead and get a printer and just hit the ground running. Um, However, I do have, um, a full-time job with obligations, so I wanna make sure I can balance both schedules accordingly. So, yeah, I mean

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: that, that makes me think like, then, then why bother with even the direct to government, like why don’t, why not outsource everything then you basically save your time, right?

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: Yeah. The, the good thing with the direct garment is. The machine is so low maintenance. Um, I can get an order and in three to four minutes have that order complete and ready to ship. So the fact that I have that right next to me, um, I love that flexibility and having the printer and being able to turn orders around that fast, you know, creates the biggest margins for me.

And also, gives me the option of fast turnaround. So a lot of my clients will want something but say, Hey, I [00:12:00] forgot we have this party in three days. Can we get it done? I’m like, yep, no problem. I’ll have it ready this afternoon. Um, and if you kind of go through our Etsy reviews, um, a lot of it is fast turnaround, fast turnaround.

So we kind of strive for that. On that.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So I see that you have really great reviews on Etsy and you have like a big storefront on Etsy. Is this your primary channel for getting customers, or are you, like, do you have your own website or are, do you have other, or you, are you on other websites as well?

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: Yeah, no.

So as far as e-commerce sales Go, Etsy’s the only place that I, um, list my products and, and sell my products. I’m in the process of, um, creating our website, like a standalone website that’ll have its own storefront. Um, but at the moment, as far as e commerce sales go, Etsy’s, um, our platform, and I love Etsy, the marketplace, the way it’s structured, it’s good where they bring the clients to you.

Um, you don’t have to worry about marketing or anything like that. So I do love that side of Etsy. And then [00:13:00] I also do, uh, do a lot of sales locally around the area that I live. So we’re in the Northern suburbs of Chicago. Um, I do, uh, farmer’s markets here. I do a lot of, uh, local custom printed apparel for the city I live in.

Um, do a lot of small business apparel. So. Companies with, you know, five people might want work shirts. I do a lot of stuff like that. Um, and the outside sales are slowly growing too. I think me doing the markets and getting into the public has grown the brand. So definitely getting a lot of traction from that as well.

So Etsy e commerce and then just local markets for the outside sales.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: To me, it seems like a pretty decent business model. I mean, you know, it’s not like a regular, uh, e commerce business where you have the headache of, you know, product development and, you know, issues with product manufacturing and all these things.

It’s like, you know, you have your, uh, standard, uh, product. I guess garments that you work with and it’s all it [00:14:00] takes so that these are three to three to four minutes of printing time. Um, can you talk a little bit about the market? Is, isn’t market already saturated with like a lot of people like you who are like printing, uh, these kind of, uh, yeah, uh, garment, custom, custom garments.

Um, what is the demand? Like, is the demand increasing and like, what is the competitive landscape for you? Who are the competitors for you?

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: Uh, so if you go on Etsy, there’s tens of thousands of competitors on there. So the market definitely over the last, I would say two years, the market’s gotten a lot more saturated.

Um, I personally, I believe the reasons for that is there are a lot of different printing techniques that are available now, a lot more, um, cost friendly printers, like entry level printers that you can purchase. Um, also drop shipping is becoming a big thing. So you have a lot of companies will, who will act as your printer.

And so you have the storefront, you don’t do any printing yourself. You have that all outsourced and [00:15:00] they’ll drop ship to your client. So. With those factors, that’s definitely increased the, um, you know, the amount of sellers in the apparel industry. But honestly, what, what I try to do to set myself apart, I think it helps that I started, you know, a few years before the boom is, you know, I have a lot of Etsy sales.

Um, I think there’s over 11, 000 Etsy sales as close to 3000 five star reviews. So I kind of just let that do the talking for me. And in all honesty, if you have. A good product that you’re confident in and great customer service. I feel like everything will flow as it’s meant to. Um, so orders will keep coming that way.

So I make sure I have, um, very quick response time, very transparent with my customers. Um, definitely offer bulk discounting and all that stuff. So that’s. Basically how I will try and compete with the thousands of different, um, apparel customers, customer apparel customers on Etsy. [00:16:00]

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Your edge really is the, uh, the history that you have with Etsy and the, the reviews and the rating.

And I guess that kind of gives you an edge over competitors in, I guess, their SEO algorithm, right? Like if somebody is searching, you know, Custom t shirt printing or something like that. Maybe you are coming on the top versus the 10, you know, thousands of other competitors. Um, do you, yeah, maybe you can you can you talk a little bit about that side of thing?

You know, the SEO on Etsy. And do you ever worry that. You know if they make any change in their algorithms or they are somehow They don’t like your business anymore like they can tweak their algorithms and that can like significantly affect your sales

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: Yeah, I definitely worry about that. Sometimes. Um, a big reason for it is I truly don’t fully understand seo I I get the basics of it I understand the algorithms and how if something pops, it gets into more [00:17:00] people’s eyes, if a listing’s not performing as well, it won’t be shown as much.

So I understand that, um, backing on to what, what I said before is I just have, I have confidence in my imagery, um, the details and, you know, the reviews and sales that I have. I also too, um, you can see from my Etsy store that I have niched it into a particular market. So I have a lot of listing. Over 200 listings and some generic baby onesies or generic t shirts, but I have a lot of listings that are niched towards pets.

And so, for instance, people get their dog on their t shirt, or they’ll get a dog on a baby onesie, or their cat on a baby onesie, or they’ll get their uncle’s face on a baby onesie. So I have niched. My business towards extremely customized image printing, um, whether that being humans or dogs. So there’s still obviously sellers on Etsy that do that.

Um, not as many as your generic apparel printing. So [00:18:00] when I saw the competition, I niched into that area as far as the pets and the, and the people’s faces. So. I would say, you know, once I saw everything getting busy, just kind of find your, find your line and, and go that route and it’s, it’s doing well for us.

So just try and, um, keep, keep doing what we’re doing and hope the algorithms and the SEO keep, keep shooting people towards our store.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So basically when a customer goes on your page on Etsy, they can only buy, so if they select a t shirt with the face of a person, right, they can only select, or they can only submit that kind of an image.

You won’t, like, they cannot submit just any random image that you would print. Is it, does it exactly work like that, that if you are selecting a face t shirt, for example, it has to be certain, it has to be a face, otherwise you, you’re going to basically not print it?

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: Uh, no. So we can, we pretty much offer people can print [00:19:00] anything as long as what we’re printing is not, um, trademarked or it’s not copyright infringement and it’s the customer’s own imagery or logo.

So, um, Um, a lot of what we do is people get their custom logos on a one zero t shirt. So basically what we have is a disclaimer that if you order something using logo imagery, you consent that that is your logo imagery, and you have the rights to use that. So when we get an order from someone, let’s say it’s a face t shirt, they’ll order it and then they’ll send through their image, whether it’s of their face, we will crop out the background.

So it’s just the standalone face, add some filters and, and enhance it a little bit. And then we will mock it onto the t shirt that they purchased and send it to them for approval. At the bottom is a disclaimer that basically says what I just said, they confirm that it’s their imagery and they have permission to use it.

And then go from there. Um, but we’ve had. I mean, gosh, some crazy things printed. You can print logos, people’s faces, people’s pets. There’s been people with [00:20:00] pet pigs, pet lizards. That has been people get set, we’ll get their fast, their hot rod cars. Or, I mean, we print pretty much anything again, as long as it doesn’t infringe on any copyright.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. That, that is so interesting. What, what have you learned about your customers? Like what kind of. T shirts get, are most in demand. And like, is there a seasonality to this?

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: There’s definitely seasonality to it. So, um, one thing I’ve learned from doing this is that, I mean, we love each and every customer that comes just, or there are some extremely strange requests and there are some customers that are also quite picky as well.

So. They might want to change an image halfway through or request a color change or a text font change. So some customers can be difficult, some are easy, but that’s just the nature of the business. Um, but as far as seasonality, obviously [00:21:00] Christmas time is hectic. So the, the last week of November and the first two, three weeks of December is, it’s mayhem.

Um, I’ll be totally honest. I would say from our top line revenue, those four weeks contributes to about 80 percent of the entire yearly revenue. Wow. So. It’s a very, very busy season. Um, also before father’s day as well is, is very, very big. Um, for during the father’s day period, we’ll get a lot of onesies.

It’ll have a picture of the dad. I’ll say. Happy father’s day or first happy first father’s day. Um, a lot of baby apparel during father’s day. Other than that seasonality wise, I would definitely say Christmas and father’s day are the two big ones. You get little ones here and there, you know, Halloween, you might get a little pop on a couple of Halloween listings.

Um, but mainly yeah. This is Christmas is mayhem.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Well, that’s, that’s so interesting. How do you kind of prepare for those? I mean, if, if 80 percent of your sales are coming during Christmas, [00:22:00] um, do you like hire some help to, to help you with it? Or like, how do you manage that volume?

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: So, uh, I have, I have hired help before.

Um, my wife is, she’s an absolute gem. She knows that, that. Sacrifices as far as, you know, I’ll get up at 4 a. m. Every morning I’ll work for three hours printing, and then I’ll take care of the boys, do my day job. And then when she comes home, she’ll take the boys and then I’ll do another five, six hours of printing until midnight.

And then just do that for three weeks straight. It’s tiring, but the good thing is, is there’s a set end date, you know, we know that it’s going to end at some point. Um, and she’s also amazing too. She’ll come down here and, and help me print stuff. She’ll help me package stuff. Um, whenever I get gift wrap orders, she’s the rapper, cause I don’t know how to gift wrap very well.

So we got to, we got to definitely a great partnership as [00:23:00] far as. Working together and preparing for the busy season. So, um, definitely, definitely a lot of help on her end.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So Etsy is kind of doing the heavy lifting in terms of customer acquisition for you. Um, what do you, do you have to do anything on an ongoing basis?

Like, are you, you know, you said you don’t understand SEO, but like, are you tweaking your listing in some ways, or is it pretty much set right now autopilot? You don’t do much. Are you doing any other kind of marketing?

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: Um, so at the moment Etsy does have a marketing option, so you can pay for Etsy ads. Um, and basically what that is, you can pay a daily fee.

to Etsy and then they will basically further market the specific listings you pick them to market for you. So I do do that. I can’t remember. I think I do 5 a day or something. It’s not a lot, but I just pick my top three selling listings and then they’ll better reach for those. Other than that, I don’t do a [00:24:00] lot.

Etsy’s Etsy pretty much organically brings the business to us. Um, we also have a lot of repeat customers as well. That already know to come to our store, but as far as keeping up with the SEO, I keep my listing templates pretty much the same. Um, I don’t intertwine too much stuff other than that. I have, you know, four or five listings that account for the majority of all of our sales.

So I just kind of rely on those four or five listings to keep doing what they’re doing. Um, but I feel as long as you have, you know, imagery number is number one, good imagery, and good reviews. Um, then basically you should be sweet as far as getting traction on, on certain listings for sale for selling.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Which ones are the top sellers for you? Like in terms of, uh, you said four or five do the, the, the most of the work.

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: Yeah. So the funny one will be the best seller by far is the dog tank and t shirt combo. Let me pull it up [00:25:00] here. So I can refer it to you. So if you go to my Etsy store on the second listing, which is a photo of photo of me with my dog’s face on the shirt, and it’s a photo of my dog with my face on the shirt, very quirky list, but that’s something that a few years ago, a lot of customers were, were, were requesting gifts like that.

So we listed it and that listing alone, I can go into the back end, um, statistics, pull that up

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: for you stats. I mean, I can, I can understand why it’s the best seller. It’s very funny.

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: Very niche as well, but, um,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I mean, you can, you can take your dog walking and you’re, you’re wearing this combination. I think it’s, it’s definitely a conversational starter for sure.

It’s

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: a head turner for sure. Yeah. Head turner. That, so that listing there, um, just in the last 12 months, we’ve sold over a thousand units of that specific listing. Wow. So it’s a big [00:26:00] seller. And then our dog ones is always sell a lot. That the one that says protected by and the dog there, that one sells a lot, probably a couple thousand a year.

Any of the ones that have the dog, the little customized text at the bottom, they sell a lot. And then our custom logo onesies as well. So people will get their business logo on a onesie. Um, we have a lot of, we’ve probably got about 10 to 12, um, bigger companies that will get these and they’ll give that out to either customers or new employers that are having babies.

So as far as Etsy is concerned, those three for sure, the pet related ones and the custom logo ones are the big sellers.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Do you get any sort of a wholesale order? Like, you know, if a company is getting their logo printer, like, do you get any kind of those wholesale orders and do you offer any extra discounts on like, you know, let’s say if somebody is getting a hundred plus.

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: Yeah, for sure. Definitely offer bulk discounts. It’s funny. I just had an order a couple of hours ago, a bachelorette [00:27:00] party. They wanted 11 t shirts and wanted to see if I did a bulk discount. So I definitely do do bulk discounts. Um, as far as on Etsy, none of that is stated in there, but if Someone wants to order and message me to ask for bulk discounts.

We definitely do that. Um, because to us, if we’re printing the same t shirt and sending it to the same location, um, shipping costs are going to be relatively the same print time. Obviously for the multiple shirts, it’s going to be different, but the setup time is one, a one time cost because we’re setting up one file, so.

Yeah, we do a lot of bulk discounts.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I mean, the one advantage also here is that, um, in terms of shipping, I mean, you’re offering free shipping and t shirts obviously are not very heavy. Um, can you talk a little bit about your, I guess, Fulfillment and shipping process. Um, are you using just regular USPS shipping or, uh, is [00:28:00] there an expectation to, um, to have the T-shirt received, like within two or three days from the customer?

Are they okay to wait, like, uh, you know, 5, 5, 7 days? How do you, uh, yeah. Can you talk a little bit about your fulfillment and shipping?

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: Yeah, for sure. So. From the front end to the back end, basically what I’ll do is I’ll design the product that the customer purchased. Once that’s approved, I’ll go ahead, I’ll print that product.

And then once it’s ready to ship, I’ll go ahead and I’ll package it. And then I’ll ship it. So everything’s done from the front to the back in house here. So I’ll package it in house, create the shipping label in house and then ship it from there. So all of this is done by Etsy as far as your processing time and your shipping timeline.

So. I offer free shipping on all orders. That’s just free, regular USPS ground shipping. Customers do have the option to purchase an upgrading shipping. If they need it sooner than they can purchase a priority express shipping or whichever one they want to go with. But as far as turnaround times, I like to get [00:29:00] all anything ordered.

I like to get it shipped within one to two business days. Yeah, that’s backing onto the fast turnaround times. Customers love that. So. It’s getting us a lot of good feedback. So we keep that one to two business day turnaround time. Um, and then as far as shipping, whether they’re West coast, East coast, if they’re close to Chicago, they’re going to get it in one to two days.

Regular USPS ground, um, if they’re on the West coast, usually you’re looking at three to five business days. Um, the good thing is once they place an order and we do ship it through Etsy’s backend, they have all that information sent to the customer. So they’ll receive a tracking number and they’ll get tracking updates on their order from that.

Um, so that’s how the shipping works. As far as the free shipping, we do offer free shipping and everything, just because I kind of wanted it to my store. So I noticed when I shop and my wife shops that we love free shipping, we think that we’re getting ourselves a deal. I know that, you know, [00:30:00] some businesses and brands will mark the shipping into the cost itself and still show free shipping.

We get that, but, um, we just like the feel of getting something for free or getting a discount. So that’s why I do offer the free shipping, um, on our Etsy store.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. Free shipping is huge. I mean, it’s a huge conversion, right? Uh, you can, um, you know, you can make the shipping cost in the, uh, in the price itself.

And, um, I guess the perception of free is, is, I, I don’t know, there’s something in the human, human psychology that, that thinks that they’re getting a value. Um, but do you, do you,

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: I’m also sorry to interrupt you there. I’m also trying out a couple of differences as well. So I have, Okay. On my Etsy store, I have a couple of listings that are very similar products.

One I have listed with free shipping one I have at a discounted price, but you have to pay to ship both products are the same, and I’m just seeing where the traction trends in both of those. What I’ve seen so far over the last four to [00:31:00] six weeks is that the free shipping one is selling way, way more units than the cheaper option with the option to add shipping.

So that just kind of speaks to itself. The customers see free and they think they’re getting a deal. So we’ll probably stick with the free shipping throughout everything.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: That is, that is such an interesting experiment. And as you were talking about it, I was, I was about to say, let me guess. It’s going to be the free shipping one.

It’s yeah, I don’t know. It’s, it’s definitely a conversion, uh, conversion factor there. Um, from a business point of view, um, do you, I mean, now that you have kind of a, you know, a well running business, you know, you have a well running process created, what do you. Do you think about kind of scaling the business somewhere?

Like, are you thinking about how can I take a business model that’s working well, I’m doing well, and how can I scale it so that I’m not just limited to a certain number of orders that I can produce and so forth? Or, you know, how can I [00:32:00] be able to generate more revenue? Are you thinking along those lines or are you kind of sticking to like a linear growth?

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: It’s a good question. That’s the question I asked myself. Uh, probably once a week I have for the last two years. Um, I’m always back and forth on which direction I want to go. Um, as I’ve mentioned previously, I do have a full time job. Absolutely love the full time, full time job that I’m in at the moment.

And I also do love, you know, Google prints and the apparel printing side of things as well. So work, work balance. I’m very happy with both ends. Um, obviously, you know, owning your own company and wanting to see that grow. There’s a little bit more of an itch and a drive there to see that succeed. Um, but I’m very happy with where I’ve got Google prints at the moment.

If you asked, if you had have asked me back in 2019, if I would have thought I’d have, you know, over 10, 000 sales and, and the. Using the custom base I do now, I would have thought you were dreaming. So, super happy with where it is [00:33:00] now, um, but yeah, I do have a goal, um, within the next few years to see it scale and put some more effort into it and see where I can take it.

Um, but at the moment, as I said, super happy with where I am. I’m on both sides of, of the juice and I also have a young family as well. So I’ve got a two year old and a three year old and, you know, I also value spending time with them. And, you know, when the busy seasons hit, that’s, you know, I’m also, I’m working a lot more where I would love to be spending time with them going for bike rides or swim at the beach or something like that.

So it’s got its pros and cons, but, um, I think that if I do end up going the scaling route, I’m going to look on, um, you know, getting some help, getting an employee, having someone take over the duties so that I can keep that balance, that work life balance, uh, with my wife and kids as well.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Are there other marketplaces besides Etsy that kind of cater to these kind of printing products?

Um,

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: There [00:34:00] are, but none of them from what I know, um, none of them are at the scale of Etsy at the reach that Etsy has. Um, I, I, there’s one, there’s one that I saw recently. The name is jotting my memory here, but when you’re looking at it, at comparing the size and the reach and the market share, there’s nothing close to Etsy as far as the custom marketplace.

I mean, obviously you can go the route of selling on Amazon, but. that kind of takes out the, the optionality of, of printing custom. So I could, I could try with, um, you know, working elsewhere, um, other than Etsy, but in all honesty, the business coming through Etsy is, is at a perfect level at the moment. Um, I feel if I did scale the business, I could just scale the listings and the options on Etsy and that would scale the business for me.

For sure.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Uh, in every entrepreneur’s journey, there’s always mistakes made lessons learned failures. Um, have there been any big, um, [00:35:00] learning moments for you while, you know, since you’ve been learning, like what have you learned and what can other entrepreneurs learn from your mistakes?

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: So I’m happy. The biggest one, it still gets me to today.

It still frustrates me to today. It was one of my very first orders. Um, so I had a friend of mine and he, that I was starting my business and he wanted to be, you know, one of my first customers. So he ordered some t shirts. Just had a funny image of, I can’t remember what the print was. It was of one of these friends or something.

It was an inside joke, but it was t shirts with a custom image on the front. Um, it would have been about six, six, seven t shirts. And at this time I had just got the printer. I had just stocked up inventory. So. You know, if I mess up one shirt, I’m like, it’s the end of the world. So I printed all the shirts.

I thought my process was down packed and I sent the shirts to him and it turned out that I hadn’t been curing the shirts properly. So I bought this print and press [00:36:00] oven where you can basically, it’s like a regular oven. You put the t shirt in there and it cures the ink. And you’re also meant to press it with a firm press to set the ink.

I was only doing the oven cure.

So you show up wash and the print just disappears, you know, you’re at like 10 percent of after one wash. So that I felt bad because, you know, he paid for the shirts, he’d given them to friends and, you know, the product was, definitely not of good quality, but, um, in all honesty, I’m thankful for two things that it was very early on in the journey.

And it was a friend of mine who I could explain, you know, what happened and, and, you know, he’s not going to leave a bad review. So I was very happy for those two things, but for sure that one still, that one still leads to me. Did you, did you refund him

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: or did you? Oh yeah. I

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: was like, let me, let me do new shirts for refund you and stuff.

But he was, you know, he’s a good friend. He [00:37:00] was awesome about the things. There’s, and there’s other little things throughout, um, the journey as well. Like there’s, there was one time where, you know, I, at Christmas time, I could be doing 30 to 40 to 50 prints and shipping those every day. And I accidentally shipped a onesie to the two onesies.

I shipped them to the incorrect address. So the customers received the incorrect order. Um, but I can say we’ll touch wood that with 11, 000 plus orders, I’ve only shipped those two to the incorrect address, so it’s, you know, growing pains, but the system’s pretty good now. Hopefully no, no more errors like that.

That’s, that’s great to hear.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Now I’m going to move on to our rapid fire segment. In this segment, I’m going to ask you a few quick questions and you have to answer them maybe in a word or a sentence or so. Uh, the first one is one book recommendation for entrepreneurs and why.

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: So I’m not a big book reader, but there’s one [00:38:00] book I did read.

Um, it’s, it’s a little bit tiered towards entrepreneurs. It’s more, um, on the vesting Collins. I read that, uh, gosh, like five years ago. And I was, you know, whilst trying to start my business, I was also trying to figure out how to invest and where I should invest and what should I should invest in. And I was stressing about that, reading that book just kind of took that stress out of my life.

You know, Let me, let me see and do the investing on that end. And then gave me more time to worry and stress about the business itself. So not entrepreneur related, but, um, definitely geared toward investing as far. me taking in my knowledge. I’m, I’m a podcast guy. Um, always have been, so I’ll listen to two or three podcasts a day.

Um, side hustle nation, um, is a great one for entrepreneurs. I was on that podcast about 12, 18 months ago. Um, bigger pockets money. Also love that podcast as [00:39:00] well. They’ll have some entrepreneurs on there who will kind of explain the journey and how they got from, you know, A to B. So. They’re the two of the top that are at the list for me, motivational podcasts.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. I mean, that brings me to another question. Like you mentioned investing, like, do you, do you pay yourself a salary from this business? I mean, I know you have a full time job because that’s only going to add to your taxable income, right? Like how do you kind of take some of the earnings from this business and use that for your, your purposes?

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: So I’ll basically at the end of every month, I’ll take a portion of the profits and then just Check that to myself to my. Um, and I keep that all the books on that. So at the end of every month, I’ll take 40 percent of, of profits and I’ll take that to myself. As I grow, I’m probably going to change how I do that.

Um, so I’ve got a good friend that’s kind of advised me and all that at the moment. So, um, I’m kind of doing that. [00:40:00] I’m not sure if it’s the most correct way or the most diligent way to do it, but that’s just what I do just to just be able to take some of the profits and to be able to use them in my personal life.

But I try to keep a lot of I try to keep a lot of the profits in the business, just in case the time comes where I do decide to scale and buy a printer or scale and get a location or anything like that.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: An innovative product or idea in the current e commerce, retail, or tech landscape that you feel excited about?

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: Oh gosh, I mean, the printers, the, this kind of, the, the innovation in printers over the last two years is insane. When I was looking at printers back in 2019, there were, there were some options, but there were a lot of, um, there were a lot of holdbacks, you know, some printers didn’t have white ink, some couldn’t do colored garments.

Now there’s new printers coming out every month. And the next one is better than the last one. [00:41:00] So I’m pumped just looking at all the innovation coming out as far as the printers, the machinery. Um, I also have to have a little bit of self control and, and try not buy every single one of them. But, uh, I definitely love researching them and it’s, it’s kind of exciting to see how innovative some of the technology is coming as far as the printers.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah, it’s interesting before this, like when I read direct to Garmin printer, I searched it and I think Epson’s page came up and it was like there were three or four printer listed direct to Garmin. And I think the more and more expensive was 50, 60, 000 or something. So, yeah, definitely. These are, yeah, very interesting.

Um, a business or productivity tool or software that you would recommend or productivity tip.

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: Uh, that’s a good question. So a big part of, uh, the time involved in Google prints is the photo editing. So, as I mentioned, a lot of our orders are people’s [00:42:00] dogs or people’s faces on t shirts. We do all the photo manipulation as far as taking out the background, editing the photo.

Taking out the background is, you know, that’s a pretty time consuming product. If you’re doing that and that takes you 10 to 15 minutes per order and you’re getting 30 orders a day. That time definitely adds up. So over the past six months, I’ve been using some AI generators that will remove the background for you.

So basically that’s just essentially load that photo into the AI generator and that’ll release the background and then give you the transparent file without the background. So that saved me a lot of time on the design end. So definitely happy I found, found that and utilizing that.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. And I use that for my, for creating the thumbnails and it’s, it’s quite accurate, but I’m, I’m assuming like, do you ever have to do like some light touching on your own or, yeah,

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: that tool is very accurate when you’ve got good contrast.

So if you have a dog, that’s. [00:43:00] You know, dark brown and the wall that’s behind or the background is light whites or edges, then that contrast is easy for the photo editing AI tool to realize, but sometimes it’s a photo and in the background is like other people or trees or anything. And sometimes it doesn’t recognize exactly what is the foreground, what is the subject, what’s the background.

So. There are times where I’ll put that in the generator and I’ll bring it up and I still have to do some, you know, some touching up around, but all in all, it’s still saving me time. Yeah.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. Yeah, those AI tools are getting really, really good. Um, another startup or business in e commerce, retail or tech that you think is currently doing great things.

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: Oh, gosh, I mean, I’m going to, I don’t know if you can really classify Etsy as a startup, but it’s definitely an e commerce business. I, I mean, I speak super highly of Etsy just because, you know, it’s me starting Gooberprints on Etsy and seeing the way that it’s [00:44:00] changed our life as a family is awesome. And, you know, it’s changing hundreds of thousands of people’s lives worldwide.

So I think Etsy is just such a cool marketplace. It’s such a cool idea where You know, people who are into creating their own products are into hand making stuff, designing stuff, people that are artistic, it’s a good area where they can scratch their itch and sell their products and market it to the world.

Um, you know, the art world and the design world is, it’s kind of a tough one as far as finding stable, steady, um, good margin income. And Etsy is just a great, great resource to be able to list your custom made product. And you know, if, if it’s good, if it’s good work and people love it, you can really do well from it.

So I, uh, yeah, I can’t speak highly enough of Etsy. I’m a big fan.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Great. A peer entrepreneur or business person whom you look up to or someone who inspires you. [00:45:00]

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: So as far as peer, uh, backing on to my mate that I mentioned before, um, especially on the business side of things, he’s been very helpful as far as teaching me, um, and informing me on different ways to go as far as the business front stands.

Um, I’m a graphic designer, so I know all graphic design things, artistic things, as far as the business side of things, you know, I am not by far, um, no expert on that. So. It’s been good to have a peer in my inner circle that can help me in that route, encourage me in that route and kind of coach me in that route as well.

So he’s definitely been a great help. Um, and also just, it’s good to have someone in your corner with, you know, some motivation and kind of kicking your button and let you know when it’s time to grind and get stuff done. So, um, he’s been very helpful, but also to just, um, you know, kind of soaking up as much information as I can.

So. The podcast I listen to hearing other people’s stories. I love [00:46:00] that. It’s kind of good motivation. And I also do regular, um, I would call it study or, um, you know, information finding. So I’ll look at other stores, see what they’re selling, see what works for them, see if I can integrate any of those, um, practices in my store.

So I do, I do kind of follow other people in that front, but. Yeah, definitely that.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Final question, best business advice that you have ever received or you would give to other entrepreneurs?

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: Oh, best business advice. Um, I’d honestly say that, you know, if you, if you have a product that you’re confident in and that you like, and you think is of high quality, then, you know, spread it out, enjoy it, work hard and, um, give it to the masses.

So, um, I’d also kind of. I’d kind of say to break that stigma down between, you know, being an artist or a graphic designer or an art major and, and kind of [00:47:00] not being a very prominent industry to be in as well. You know, if you do good work and you’re confident in it, then put in the hours, put in the hard work.

And, um, you know, make sure that you prove those people wrong. Definitely.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Great, great message for sure. Well, Troy, those were all the questions that I had. Thank you so much for sharing your story, for sharing your, uh, business, uh, successes. That’s what the lessons learned. Uh, if anybody wants to try out one of your t shirts, uh, order them, what is the best way they can do that?

How can they find you?

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: Yeah, I appreciate the time, mate. It was, it was great to chat with you. Um, I enjoy listening to your content as well. So thank you very much. Um, so if anyone wants to check out our store, it’s just guberprints. com. Um, which that’ll link you directly to our Etsy store, or you can just check us out on Instagram or Facebook, Facebook at guberprints, um, posting stuff up there, you know, at least once a week, twice a week.

Um, and then you can contact us through the Etsy store. If you have any custom order questions.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: [00:48:00] Awesome. Well, Troy, thank you so much again, and I wish you all the very best in your business.

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: Appreciate that,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: mate.

Troy Parker of GooberPrints: Thank you.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Thank you.

Also, get inspired to Create a Profitable Online Business with Building one of the first Men’s Grooming E-commerce Brands – Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge


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