We recently connected with Mike “Cube” Sherrill and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Mike “Cube”, thanks for joining us today. What do you think it takes to be successful?

I think people are quick to jump to a monetary value of your success. Although in my experience running TH!S over 13 years being successful has a lot of different aspects. Of course covering bills, staying afloat and having what you need to live is very important. Throughout my time here I am very grateful for supportive family, friends and customers that are loyal to our brand. I’m happy to have taught and helped a lot of artists and entrepreneurs come up and get into the art world through our business or just with tips on being successful and striving to create. Its nice to have something to show, and prove that what we have done here at TH!S is possible on a realistic level. Those things help me feel very successful with what I do and the brand we have put together over the years. Being proactive, creative, and working hard to get to where we are I feel is the reason we are where we are today.

Mike “Cube”, 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 started TH!S as an outlet for a group of friends to create together with their expertise under one roof. We wanted to start something that we could do the types of art and services we loved while getting help from each other and pushing one name TH!S. I went to school at Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design and have a BFA with emphasis on Animation. II quickly learned after graduating in 2004 that to be in the animation field I needed to be on the West or East coast and work at one of the small handful of places/studios where animation was done (times have changed a lot since then in the “Animation” field of art that’s for sure!). I wanted to stay in Colorado and found myself doing more graphic design, illustration, painting, murals and more. It was apparent pretty quick that I could do that here and there was a lot of avenues where those types of skills could be applied. I think the same could be said for the other 3 original owners of TH!S (one of which is still here with me as an owner of the company). We saw that we could collaboratively put together a brand that offered all the things we were passionate about. Today we do all aspects of Art, Print & Design. Mostly focusing on what our equipment is best suited for, including Stickers (Full color Digital Print and Decal style), Screen printed shirts, garments and posters, graphic design, illustration and logos, murals and wall wraps, High-end Photo and Paper art prints, banners, labels, vehicle and window graphics and more.

We work with all types of clients all over Colorado and the country, but we definitely specialize on the up and comers, or small brands and artists that are building their presence. We like to get in projects that make us and our customer think outside the box a bit to come up with a creative and do-able solution to their design needs. I do think this is what keeps people and clients coming back, they get to work with people at a business that are actually invested in helping them grow and succeed with a quality look, and where they feel they are not just another number or a click on a “Place order here” website. A lot of projects we do (Small runs or one off prints) are the types of things big box companies quickly turn away.

If your a start up business, artist, maker, band, specialty shop, restaurant or food truck, clothing brand, pop up shop, street fair style event vendor then TH!S will be a good bet for getting your branding up and running.

We appreciate and are very grateful for every customer that comes through our door, whether they place an order or even just spread the word of TH!S to their friends, we would not be where we are today without that grassroots mentality that people have for our brand and business.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

So here at TH!S we also run the only Fingerboard store in the state, and one of the few in the country. Yes, miniature skateboards like tech decks, only waaayyy nicer. Its a whole thing, check it out at @this_fb on Instagram. This definitely started as a side hustle and is a huge part of our business these days.

I’ve always been into skateboarding, snowboarding, and fingerboards, just basically the trick oriented mindset.
We threw some fingerboard events at our old shop space because we had the room, and thought it would be a fun and unique event.

We have parks, contests giveaways and more on those bigger events. They are always very successful and a fun time. We slowly integrated miniature skateparks in our space, and a case with fingerboard goods from all over the world. This picked up speed fast, and before we knew it was a complete new facet of our business. It brings lots of people through our doors, and leads to all sorts of print business with miniature stickers, packaging, shirts and board graphics (printed and designed) from fingerboard brands all across the planet.

Its very cool to me that I was able to integrate (pretty much accidentally) a niche hobby I was into in our shop. To have that be a successful and fun aspect of our business these days is an amazing thing to me, it brings a lot of really great people into our shop from all over the country, and keeps things pretty exciting around here on another level then our typical ventures.

I think its important to keep the things/hobby’s you like and your business endeavors somewhat tied in, as the saying goes “do what you love and you’ll love what you do”. Think creatively and always keep in mind how the things you like in your life could potentially be linked in with what you do for work.

Any advice for managing a team?

Here at TH!S we run a very different pay program then typical businesses. We work closely as a team, and everyone involved is a part of that team mentality, on a different level then what you would think. Everyone here is very invested in TH!S as we are all in it together. Myself and the other co-owner divvy profits equally throughout the team, and we all get paid based upon how well we do throughout a month. So if we don’t do well for the month, its on all of us. We get paid based on the work we put out and there is no guarantee, so if you are not here doing work, then we aren’t earning anything. It keeps people proactively staying busy around here, and helps keep morale high and an evenly distributed workload throughout all of us. It gives us accountability, while also providing a freedom that is not really in any other business you may be an employee at. If you have something you have to do (or want to do) you can do it, just better make sure you make up that time, and do it when the timing is right. It may sound crazy, but we don’t clock hours or make a schedule. Obviously we have loose agreements on who opens and who closes the shop, but we are all here to get things done regardless of a schedule. It’s a unique and crazy system, but keeps it from a “Clock in – clock out” mentality of little to no cares for your job, to a highly invested and motivated group of people that are working together to make all TH!S happen. Although the system does not come without its faults, I do think it is one of the key parts that makes this place special and keeps people here. This system certainly creates this mindset for all of us that we are each a larger part of the business as a whole.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thisproject.net
• Instagram: @thisdenver / @this_fb
• Facebook: TH!S