Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Melody Valenzuela. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Melody, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

The biggest risk I’ve ever taken was deciding to start a business. For as long as I can remember, I have always had the desire to be a business owner, work on my own terms and build a business for my family to inherit. Going through the pandemic really made me focus on things within my control. What can we do to solidify our own future in a period full of uncertainty? I had to take a big picture look and realize that the sacrifice and financing would fall into place if I just believed in myself and pushed myself to work for my own business as diligently as I’d been working for corporate America. Sometimes we underestimate our capabilities and we limit ourselves simply with the wrong mindset. I wanted to change that by investing in myself and my families future.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

We are Pasadena DTG! We are a small, family run business that uses direct to garment printing to print on demand. We began with the idea through our experience buying custom made shirts for ourselves. We recognized that certain types of customization were either too difficult or too expensive. We decided we wanted to be a solution and started researching the industry. It was then that we made the decision to purchase a DTG machine and began taking the orders that were to difficult for other shops that used screenprint or vinyl. Our shop can print full color, fine detail, shading, gradients, portraits and more. We are proud that we can help bring our clients designs to life without sacrificing quality!

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

Starting a business usually begins with the question of “Where will I get the capital to start up?”. Saving can take years, loans come with interest only if you qualify and well, finding investors can be extremely difficult if you don’t know the right people. All in all, it’s hard and can be discouraging. As a corporate worker by day, my employer paid end of year bonuses which became our initial capital for the business. We knew the bonuses would only cover a portion so we had to rely on the use of our personal credit to fund the rest as we hadn’t filed to actually start the business on paper yet.

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

Word of mouth is the biggest factor in building a reputation! We always strive to produce top quality prints that will make our clients show them off and be excited to share where they got them printed! We work with our clients from concept to finished product and make sure that the quality we produce is what we want representing our brand. We love to see and hear our clients sharing where they prefer to get their garments printed!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://pasadenadtg.com
• Instagram: Www.instagram.com/pasadenadtg
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PasadenaDTG/
• Other: [email protected]