We recently connected with Jacob Phillips and have shared our conversation below.

Jacob, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I have always had an entrepreneur’s mind from since I can remember. Aside, from a few “real” jobs through my teens, I had almost always had better luck making money from other avenues. Some of these things consisted of buying & selling on eBay, furniture & trash flipping, and pretty much anything I could get my hands on that would turn a profit without having to spend much time “working”. I had couple business ideas through college that I wanted to get into, but never took the chance to do so, then fast forward to 2016. I was just about to take on college graduation, marriage, and was about to start a job that I most definitely didn’t enjoy. On top of that I had just been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes right before this new season of life.

As time progressed that year, I battled with depression of living with an autoimmune disease & everything that was new to me. I worked 6 days a week at a job that I absolutely dreaded going to & barely had time to spend with my new wife. I knew something needed to change. I had kicked around some previous business ideas and landed on creating a Screen Printing/Embroidery shop here in my hometown of Greenville, Texas. The plan was to make East Texas Print Shop stand out from the other custom apparel business around the area. I approached my parents and family about the idea and we ended up making it a family business because there was SO much work to be done & we as a family wanted to take this on together.

We decided to go with a bigger scale approach than most who a new to the apparel printing scene by purchasing a building located in Downtown Greenville, doing a complete remodel (about 90% was self work) including a storefront space, & adding automatic machinery. The first year was me, myself & I learning how to run a business and dial in this new craft. 5 years later we have been blessed with 8 team members on the day to day side and several other behind the scenes! Two of those being my wife & sister.

Starting out, I knew we could make this successful, especially in a small town because there were so many schools, small businesses, organizations, etc.. Not to mention, everyone has to wear some sort of clothing so the demand would always be there. We have been apart of so many great things within our community by starting this business & we really try to make that a priority to do as much as we can to give back to local events & charities.
Our main focus was to be the go to supplier for most of our area, but that has evolved to gaining lots of out of town business shipping to 19 different states within the US.

There are tons of great things and opportunities that have come from taking the leap of faith 5 years ago. I could go on & on, BUT, we’re not done yet. It’s a really cool thing to see how something can grow and evolve & I can’t wait to see where we are down the road.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Jacob, born and raised in Greenville, Texas. I’m 28 years old, been married to my wife Emmaline (who has been working along side me for 4 years) & we have 2 really awesome kids, a 4 year old girl, and 1 year old boy.

I really got into this business solely for a new experience and the flexibility that owning/operating your own business brings. Don’t get me wrong, you have to work extremely hard, but there are a lot of pros to doing so.

At East Texas Print Shop, we strive to provide quality product with a very even better experience. We see so much of our work and even friends that we work with throughout our community so we want to be on a level where we can interact and say hello even on the outside. Our services are Screen Printing, Embroidery, and other printed goods.
For example, T-Shirts, custom apparel, hats, stickers, drink wear, bags, and much more.

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

We have really focused on giving our customers a great experience working with us, & because we put so much into that most of our business is word of mouth. Now, we do put a lot on social media, which definitely helps, but we have been successful sticking to those media streams without having to market too much!

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

This is just a personal lesson that I had to learn early on in the business as we started to grow.

In the early days, obviously I had to perform many tasks by myself that a normal shop would have multiple people doing, and because we were just starting out, I was all we could afford.

It definitely took a little while, but I had to accept/learn that a business will fail 100% if you do not teach, delegate, and trust that others can help you grow. I am very much a “do it myself” kind of person, but now, I can say I most definitely trust my team with taking sure our whole operation is productive and running effectively.

I would encourage someone who may be struggling with this to take that time to make that a priority to be able to let loose of the reins so that you can grow, because you yourself could be holding back the potential of your business without even knowing it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://easttexasprintshop.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/easttexasprintshop/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/easttexasprintshop/

Image Credits
Kaleb Fulton

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