Andre Howard was tired of working for someone else. But the Dallas man wasn’t quite ready to quit his day job as a residential adviser for at-risk youth.

Enter the side hustle.

In 2017, Howard financed a direct-to-garment printer from AnaJet (asi/16000) and hung out his virtual shingle. He expected to spend the next year toiling away at his 9-to-5, while gradually building up his fledgling apparel decoration business, Design 2 Ink, during his off hours.

Shortly after launching, he fielded a desperate call from the city of Dallas looking for 100 shirts for a domestic violence walk. The company originally slated to do the work had dropped the ball, and the city needed the items in three days. “Those shirts were printed and sent to them the next day,” Howard says. The orders continued to pour in, thanks to Howard’s focus on networking and a commitment to customer service. In fact, his ROI was so high that he was able to quit his other job after only two months to focus on Design 2 Ink full-time.

“With DTG, I can actually go in and price a little lower than screen printers,” Howard says. “I don’t have to set up screens, and this machine can pump out 40 to 50 shirts an hour. It’s real sexy to be able to pop in your image, do color corrections and press print.”

Jazmin Casing, product marketing manager for AnaJet, calls Howard “one of their greatest success stories.” Traditional screen printers, perhaps, would call him one of their greatest nightmares. Indeed, Howard and other industry newbies are sometimes deemed as big a business bogeyman as online giants like Amazon and Custom Ink.

Setting up a garage-based screen-printing shop or a basement embroidery operation has a long and venerable history. But a combination of factors has sent that startup spirit into overdrive: social media and accessible e-commerce solutions, the democratization of software, and the increased availability (and continued affordability) of professional-grade starter-level equipment.

The combination has led to a new class of home-based decorators and entrepreneurs: prosumers. A melding of “producer” and “consumer,” these decorators have the equipment to compete and the ambition to succeed – and (thanks to technology) a lower barrier of entry to contend with. What once was a high hedge is now little more than decorative fencing. The rise of the gig economy and the DIY movement have made jumping that fence ever more attractive to hobbyists trying to fund their passion and aspiring entrepreneurs ready to turn their part-time pastime into a full-time business.

[At left] Andre Howard (center), owner of Design 2 Ink, stands with satisfied customers. Howard started the company two years ago as a part-time venture, but was able to quit his day job and focus on decorating full-time within two months of launching. [At right] An example of Design 2 Ink’s recent work, which is priced affordably.

“I’ve never been in a room for more than a few minutes that somebody didn’t have two ideas for a custom T-shirt business. Now, it’s a realistic option for someone to do it,” says Mark Stephenson, director of marketing for ColDesi (asi/18325), an equipment manufacturer geared toward those just starting out.

But established decorators often complain that these interlopers drive down prices and steal away their customers, while also putting out a lower-quality product. Stephenson gets such comments all the time: “We hear, ‘I can’t compete with these ladies who are working in their bedrooms and doing T-shirts.’ Or ‘How do I compete with a guy selling $10 T-shirts?’”

The solution isn’t to ignore the issue and hope it goes away. “Cottage industry” decorators, as veteran embroiderer Erich Campbell dubs them, are here to stay – and the manufacturers selling supplies and equipment have taken note. “There’s very little difference between the materials we get and what’s being sold in the craft market,” says Campbell, program manager for BriTon Leap, maker of Embrilliance embroidery software.

“The lines are being erased. That’s probably a little panic-inducing for a traditional decorator.” — Erich Campbell, BriTon Leap

Brands like Ricoma and Tajima that have typically targeted commercial embroiderers are making smaller single-head machines to service the prosumer market, whereas Brother, known more for its home machines, has started exhibiting its crossover Entrepreneur series at trade shows, Campbell points out.

“The lines are being erased,” he adds. “That’s probably a little panic-inducing for a traditional decorator.”

There are many pursuits that provide a natural segue into the decorating world: bands that want to take ownership of their own merch; graphic designers and artists who get involved in production; photographers who want to put their prints on various gift items; parents in booster clubs trying to save cash on youth sports gear; enthusiasts of niche interests like antique cars or show dogs who figure they can make a few extra bucks selling personalized apparel on-site at the events they’re already attending.

John Bowes, owner of Cold Cuts, was a musician who fell into the industry. He first started screen printing for his band and his friends’ bands in his mom’s garage over a decade ago. “I had a very seated connection with the band world, and I was able to talk to everyone I knew and get clients very quickly,” he says. “Print work seemed to flow rapidly once people saw I was doing decent enough work.”

It wasn’t long before he had graduated out of the garage and into his Hatfield, PA-based facility, stocked with two automatic presses, a manual and six embroidery heads. Cold Cuts also boasts about 30 employees. “We’ve expanded massively on what we can offer,” he says.

Many home-based decorators, however, just start out crafting for the joy it brings them, creating custom projects for friends and family. As they invest more time and money into their hobby, the need to monetize their output also increases (often at the behest of a frustrated spouse). “All of a sudden, their husband is saying, ‘You’ve got to do something with this or stop,’” says Joyce Jagger, The Embroidery Coach. “I hear that a lot.”

“I’ve never been in a room for more than a few minutes that somebody didn’t have two ideas for a custom T-shirt business. Now, it’s a realistic option for someone to do it.” — Mark Stephenson, ColDesi

Their initial investment might not even be that high, at least compared to the startup costs for a commercial endeavor. For example, the Cricut machine (pronounced like “cricket”), popularized during the previous decade’s scrapbooking boom, is often an entry point for aspiring T-shirt decorators. “Before there was a Cricut cutter, if you wanted to do vinyl tees, you’d have to spend $10,000,” Stephenson says. But a high-end Cricut machine costs just a few hundred dollars.

Ryan Moor, CEO of screen-printing supply company Ryonet (asi/528500), even had a customer who “literally would make $200,000 a month” printing with a Yudu, a plastic screen-printing kit that can be purchased online for around $200.

Eventually, however, even these tiniest of small businesses must think about scale. “People love their Cricut until they get a big order and realize a commercial cutter will be much faster and 10 times quieter and it will do more designs at one time,” Stephenson says. In fact, one of the most popular topics of the Custom Apparel Startups podcast ColDesi hosts was a March episode titled “Your Cricut-Based Business Next Steps.”

For some crafters, the next step up might be a more industrial printer/cutter. For others, it could be a small DTG printer, thanks to its relatively low price tag and short learning curve. The Ricoh ri100 from Anajet, for example, costs just under $5,000. “That’s considered inexpensive in the DTG world, but in the arts and crafts world, that’s decidedly prosumer,” Casing says. “It comes with this shift in thinking: I just spent all this money, and now I need to pay this off and get a return on it. It’s driving that hobbyist consumer to think more like a business person.”

Other home-based entrepreneurs opt for a white toner printer, like the Digital Heat FX from ColDesi, which lets you create transfers with a white layer that can be heat-applied to shirts of any color. The newest model costs around $14,000, including a heat press, according to Stephenson. “The advantage of a white toner printer is there’s zero maintenance, no messy ink,” he adds. “They’re great. They’re really an industry disruptor. We introduced them to the U.S. two or three years ago, and they’ve been accelerating ever since.”

There’s some truth to the complaint about hobbyist and “cottage” decorators driving down the price of an embellished garment. A home-based shop with a solitary owner-operator has fewer expenses than a brick-and-mortar with a full roster of employees, though the larger shop can generally bridge the gap with production-friendly equipment and economies of scale. Instead, the price discrepancy between the two is often more due to newer decorators’ inexperience and tendency to undervalue their own time and effort.

“They don’t factor in their overhead or their own wages as a cost, and they listen to the lowest-common denominator on pricing,” Campbell says. “When people are doing decoration for themselves for fun, and their church says they need six shirts, they’ll muddle through, and those garments that should cost $30 apiece, they did for the cost of thread because they’re excited to do the job.”

Bothersome as he finds it, Campbell admits the stereotype of the “embroidery granny” has a grain of truth. Jagger agrees. “We women are taught that we’re just doing things for people, we’re helping them,” she says. “A man goes at it with a whole different attitude.”

When women become entrepreneurs, they often have to “change their whole mindset,” Jagger says. Though technical training is a core tenet of her coaching business, Jagger actually spends a significant amount of time spurring her clients to make that attitude adjustment, helping them calculate the exact cost of their time so they can price their work with an eye toward profit.

With Design 2 Ink, Howard sees the price wars from a different angle, arguing that the traditional decorators – or at least the screen printers in the greater Dallas area where he hails – are guilty of gouging their customers, sending clients scrambling for alternatives. “I’ve talked to schools and rec centers that have purchased their own machines because they say it’s cheaper to do their own shirts,” he says.

“You’re not in competition with them; stop trying.” — Joyce Jagger, The Embroidery Coach

Howard himself typically charges $5 to $6 per shirt for a full-color DTG print on white fabric. “So many clients come to me and say that same shirt elsewhere is $20 to $25. Why are your shirts so cheap?” he says. “I tell them they’re not cheap, I just price them what I think is fair. … My heart has never been to take advantage of people.”

So, we return to the question posed at the beginning of this story: How can a traditional mid-size apparel decoration shop compete with these home-based businesses?

The short answer is you can’t and shouldn’t. “You’re not in competition with them; stop trying,” Jagger says. “You’re going after a different market than what these people are servicing.”

Rather than bemoan the situation, take the opportunity to be strategic and pinpoint areas – other than price – that differentiate your shop from the competition. “Emphasize what you do better,” Stephenson advises.

And if you can’t figure out what you do better, it might be time to rethink your business model. Stephenson shares a story of one of ColDesi’s customers, a screen-printing and DTG shop in Erie, PA, that relied on retail walk-ins. After a handful of garage startups began cutting into the shop’s bottom line, the owner decided to switch gears and focus entirely on the contract side of his business, doing large-scale DTG orders for brands. “His business is five times what it used to be,” Stephenson adds.

Other differentiators for larger shops could be automation and creative design, Moor says. Automated processes allow larger shops to be more efficient and handle greater volume. In-house design staff can help you wow clients with new and exciting concepts. “Anyone can go get a shirt for cheap if they already have a logo,” Moor says. Good designers can “whip up some really cool stuff that people haven’t seen before,” giving them an edge over the “old guys that just have a catalog of clip art,” he adds.

For decorators who are nimble and know their niche, there’s plenty of room to find success – whether your home base is a spare bedroom, modest storefront or super-sized production facility.

“There are always going to be people who start out just like I did,” says Cold Cuts’ Bowes. “Competition is always a good thing. It keeps people on their toes. Sometimes, yes, it sucks that the person printing in their garage doesn’t have the same overhead as I do, but they can’t work as quickly as I can. There are places where I win and places where they win. Everyone’s going to have their home.”

Prosumer Do’s & Don’ts

If you’re a home-based decorator looking to expand, heed this advice from industry veterans.

DON’T sell designs with artwork you’re not authorized to use. “Etsy is frightening,” says veteran embroiderer Erich Campbell. “The first page of everything you search for is a copyright violation.”

DON’T buy used commercial equipment. “That’s almost universally a disaster for someone just starting out,” says Mark Stephenson of ColDesi (asi/18325). “We talk people out of it all the time.”

DO have a solid business strategy. “Go in with a plan,” says Jazmin Casing of Anajet (asi/16000). “Are you going to cater to a certain niche? How do you plan to make money on this? How will you do your marketing?”

DO use social media. “You don’t have to be a big shop to look big on social media,” Campbell says. “I’ve seen tons of people make hay on Instagram.” You can easily project a professional persona. Use hashtags and influencer marketing to reach your target audience.

DO take advantage of educational resources. Most reputable equipment vendors offer free webinars and how-to videos, in addition to perks like live online training and support. “We train the crap out of our customers,” Stephenson says.

THERESA HEGEL is the executive editor of Wearables. Contact: thegel@asicentral.com; follow her on Twitter at @theresahegel.