We recently connected with Ian McKay and have shared our conversation below.

Ian, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s jump to the end – what do you want to be remembered for?

Against all odds, we are successful in life, family, and business. Our families name is continued with honor and our children become respected members of society.

Ian, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

We make T-shirts! hahaha, We do a little more than that but here is our story…. Our company started as a small need for co-owner, Ian’s gym business and powerlifting meet directing. We began making shirts with a small vinyl cutter and heat press. We eventually broke the heat press in the process of making a large shirt order, and began expanding! We decided to open up to order fulfillment for other small or large companies local to us. Working out of a small 250sqft space inside the gym front office, we have decided to expand to meet needs of silk screen printing and found a 2000sqft space near by in downtown historic Hendersonville. As I am writing this inside our new space, we have unwrapped equipment behind me that was delivered to us today. We will begin our chapter of providing silk screen printing to the local area and beyond as soon as we unwrap and setup.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Making the choice to use DTF vs HTV in shirt making. DTF(Direct to Film) is a process in which ink and heat activated glue is printed on transfer film and then heat transferred onto the garment. When we started, we used HTV(Heat Transfer Vinyl) which is a process that takes a full sheet of vinyl that is cut out by a vinyl cutter and then the excess is pulled off(weeding) to produce the image that will be transferred to the garment. HTV process takes forever, and we learned that the hard way with a 300 shirt order with a front, back, and sleeve print. We had to cut and weed 900 vinyl images for this order. While DTF is still an arduous task to undertake, there is no cutting or weeding in the process. We saved hours of work moving to DTF

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

2 bros started just over a year ago and our best source of new clients has been referrals and word of mouth. Some of our larger orders has come from connections we have made outside of the business, and continue to provide referrals as we over deliver and stand behind our work.

Contact Info:

• Website: 2brostshirts.biz
• Instagram: @2brostshirts
• Facebook: 2brostshirts