We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jason Feather. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jason below.

Hi Jason, thanks for joining us today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

There seems to be a separation in the screen printing industry between the small “garage printer” and the large-scale warehouse printers. This separation is logical, considering the facts: a garage printer has low overhead and can really only accommodate small print runs, while the large-scale printers have a ton of overhead expenses due to equipment costs, rent, labor, etc. Large print shops tend to have high minimums and focus on selling to the larger print run clients, b2b, and/or contact printing. Here at aka, we try to bridge the gap and offer high quality print services to the small- and mid-sized client. It’s difficult for a growing business to shift focus away from clients that can yield higher potential income – I mean, we have to pay bills as well – but we feel it’s important to help the startups with the hope that we can grow together. It’s what it means to be a part of our neighborhood and local community. We love the success story of watching a customer that started out ordering just 12 tees and is now ordering hundreds on a consistent basis. Of course we want to grow our business, but the mid-sized shop is our happy place and we’re not afraid to say it.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

aka is your not-so-average screen print shop that is located in the heart of one of the most desirable neighborhoods in San Diego, CA. We have a local boutique/gift shop storefront with our print shop in the back, occupying most of the footprint. Our store showcases local brands and merchandise from local bars and restaurants alongside items that we find amusing/items that make great gifts for that special someone. Mostly low-key funny stuff and artsy gifts. Our client list consists of many local small businesses, breweries, bars/restaurants, clothing line startups, and some of our favorite clients… bands. We offer a program that allows touring bands to purchase larger quantities at a discount that we then ship to multiple locations along their tour. This allows them to save on cost by ordering large quantities, and avoids filling up the van! We operate 2 manual and 2 auto presses along with a mobile setup for live screen printing events. What sets us apart is we offer high quality plastisol, water based, and discharge ink printing for small to large orders.

As an owner, my proudest moment is the fact that we have been able to maintain such an amazingly loyal client base for so many years. The pandemic was extremely hard on small businesses, and it was our client base that allowed us to keep employees and even expand to a much larger facility. By making sure we take care of our community, we ensure their support when we struggle – and we’re very thankful for it,. With social media, small businesses really have to focus on customer service and quality products at a competitive price. If you do poor work, everyone will know about it, and you will not make it very far.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

aka has your typical rags to “almost” riches story. I met my business partner by means of a mutual friend that said we HAD to meet. Javi was an artist who was screen printing his own clothing line, and I was an artist who used screen printing for my art. When we combined forces, we had just enough equipment, one computer, and access to our own “low limit” credit cards. We both had bad credit and no money, so we though yeah..let’s start a business together (haha)! Long story short, we started in a small art studio, moved into our first brick and mortar location in a low-rent neighborhood (the only location that didn’t require a credit check), then moved into our second location in our current “nicer” neighborhood, only after being asked to leave because a developer purchased the building forcing us to move into a small space on the main drag of our neighborhood, then the pandemic hits all the while our lease comes up for renewal and our landlord wants to double our rent… so what do we do, we double down on one of the largest spaces in our neighborhood and hit the ground running yet again. Each move has represented growth, sure, but also new (larger) difficulties.

So yes, starting a business with no money is possible, but you’re not going to see daylight for years to make it work.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Our business has always been fueled by word of mouth. We have always made sure to take care of our neighborhood to the best of our abilities. There is a ton of competition in our industry and if you don’t do amazing work, with excellent customer service, and with an even better product, you simply won’t survive. The honesty of our clients – both on social media and by word of mouth – has contributed to what we are today. We are responsible for the quality they expect, and they’re responsible for spreading the word.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.galleryaka.com
• Instagram: galleryaka
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/galleryaka
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/galleryaka
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/aka-san-diego?osq=aka

Image Credits
Photo by Arlene