Episodes
452
Latest episode
Jun 2026
Language
EN
Discover amazing stories & lessons from fellow shop owners and industry leaders. Hosted by Bruce Ackerman and Steven Farag
Dan Frank of Silver Screen Printing is back — and a LOT has changed since his last appearance on the show. Dan went from a $2.7M print shop to projecting $23M this year with 110 employees, 60,000 sq ft, and facilities that essentially never close. Along the way: a full company restructure, two managers who had to move on, 15% raises across the leadership team, and a deliberate shift from being an operator to being a coach.
Running 210 people, 12 automatic presses, three shifts, and 30,000+ units per day isn't a hustle story — it's a manufacturing story. Rodney McDonald of US ColorWorks built one of the most operationally sophisticated contract decorating shops in the country by bringing private equity turnaround discipline to the apparel industry.
Brett Bowden of Made Lab and Printed Threads joins Steven to talk about the Make Ready open house event happening June 12th in Fort Worth, TX — and what the print industry needs to understand about AI right now.
Coltin Handrahan started Stay Golden Custom in his high school student council office on Prince Edward Island — Canada's smallest province — and he's been proving that geography is no excuse ever since. Fourteen years in, he runs a 12-person operation with a second location now open in Halifax and a third potentially on the way.
Jonathan Ornelas from Success Print Shop has been in the industry long enough to have big revenue years — and still wonder where the money went. In this honest, wide-open conversation, Jonathan walks us through a brutal March 2026, what he's doing differently in April, and the mental toll of riding the shop roller coaster while balancing a young family.
Alex Meiners is the co-founder of Family Industries, one of the most innovative shops in the decorated apparel industry. Based in LA, Family Industries does it all — from live printing experiences at the US Open and Apple Store events to bulk custom orders — and their secret weapon isn't a bigger press or a better supplier. It's the custom technology they've built in-house.
What would you do if you had to double your company in one year — without working more hours?In this episode, Steven and Bruce break down exactly how they'd approach doubling a print shop's revenue, and Steven shares the wild behind-the-scenes story of Campus Ink's March Madness hot market printing run — from chasing final four teams across the country to pulling 15-20K in sales out of a trailer in 3 hours.
Dom from Superior Ink is back for Part 2. In this episode, he answers 10 real questions from shop owners — covering what it actually took to grow to $5M in sales, the risks that nearly broke the business, why they turned off $10-15K/month in marketing spend, and how they built a production system that runs without the owner on the floor.
Dominic Rosacci of Superior Ink is back — and this time, the conversation goes deep. After relocating his entire manufacturing operation 90 miles from Denver to Fountain, Colorado, rehiring from scratch, and opening a satellite office to keep the culture intact, Dom sits down with Bruce and Steven to break down what's actually working, what he got wrong, and what he's still figuring out.
Jordan of Fast Threads is back for Part 2, and this one goes deep. After last week's episode on multi-location expansion and the Four Burners Theory, Bruce and Steven invited Jordan back to pull the curtain back even further — on how he actually runs the business day to day, where the gaps are, and what it would take to get to the next level.
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