We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Romero Irwin a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Romero, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

It was mid-pandemic and I got laid off from my Tech-IT job in New York. I moved to LA during the pandemic. I’ve always been fascinated with embroidery. One night during the pandemic I told my wife that I wanted to go into garment decorating, embroidery, and T-shirt printing. I didn’t want to apply for a loan to start a business, so I had to make investments from my savings. My thought was, that as long as I have the machines, I should be able to make money and if it didn’t work out, I can always sell the machines and get some of my money back.

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?

I moved from Europe to New York in 2010 and lived there for about 10 years. In 2019 my wife and I decided to move to LA. I would stay in New York City for another year to keep working at my IT-job while she would move to LA and get things ready. I remember when the pandemic started, I received a phone call from my boss to inform me that the business would be closed for two weeks. I decided to fly to LA the next day to spend the two weeks lockdown with my wife. About four months into the lockdown I got laid off and I soon learned that I had to think of plan B. I didn’t see myself struggling to find myself a job and compete with people who graduated from bigger, better, well-known Universities, certainly not after the pandemic when all businesses would slowly start hiring people again. I also didn’t want to spend time in an office anymore, sitting behind a desk from 9 am – 5 pm. I wanted to do creative things.

I thought with my background in IT, Finance, and Photography I should be able to run my business. I can rent a server and start building the website, set up the bookkeeping, do my product photography and so forth. I applied for my business license in LA, and registered the business on Google to be found on Google Maps. Right after I started the business, I got two large orders in and I was able to pay off my first investments. Not long after the locals and local businesses started to call and I soon had to expand with more machines. Businesses calling from Inglewood, Hollywood, Beverly Hills to Long Beach. I’m fortunate to have done work for huge companies such as The Home Depot, The Peninsula Beverly Hills, Cinnabon, SpaceX, Youtube but also The City of Inglewood, The Lennox School District, and many more. Embroidery is a huge thing in the US. Law Enforcement still uses embroidered patches, the military, small and large businesses with embroidered logos on shirts or polo shirts, and last but not least graduation sashes. During graduation time it can get quite busy. Every business or event needs something embroidered but I also get many requests to embroider something as a gift or custom designed garments. With embroidery, you’re taking it a notch higher. You can buy a $5 polo shirt and have it embroidered with a logo which makes it looks like a $30 -$50 polo shirt.

I have used the name “Impression2u” since I started my photography business 30 years ago. A first-level domain name is essential if you want to succeed with your business. Back then I had registered the .com and .net domain names for the name Impression2u. Impression2u.com is being used for my Embroidery and T-shirt printing business and Impression2u.net for photography.

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

It was clear to me that I didn’t want to fund my business from a bank loan. I had saved enough money to start. A third of my savings I wanted to invest in machines, and the remaining savings I wanted to keep as a backup in case things may go wrong.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I used Facebook, and Google to advertise. Google Maps and Yelp are the main sources from getting new customers. I’ve spent quite some time and money on advertising on social media platforms. I want to be transparent with my business. Register the business, and put it online with the correct address, phone number, email address, and pictures of the products. Good product pictures are also very important, which will make the business stand out more. I also ask my customers if they can leave me a review. It’s a combination of everything.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.impression2u.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/impression2u/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/impression2u
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/impression2u-inglewood

Image Credits

All images Copyright by Impression2u.net