FROM THE BEGINNING...
IT ALL STARTED AFTER I RELUCTANTLY TURNED 30
Leading up to the summer of 2012 I knew that I had to get out of my job of 12 years and try something new. I saved up enough money to take 4 months off and figure out what I wanted to do next in life. At first I got married, went on my honeymoon, did some work around the house and just enjoyed not working. After a month of that I took some money that I made from selling some vinyl on Ebay and bought a start up screen printing kit and a few shirts to print on and the wheels started turning.
After coming up with a company name (738 is my favorite number) and a few designs, I started printing. Thankfully, I have a lot of great supportive friends and a wonderful family that bought enough shirts to keep me going.
One night following a beard and mustache competition someone in the car said "I got 99 problems but a beard ain't one," and inspired the idea to put it on a shirt. Then it all began...
THAT'S WHEN I BRANCHED OUT
I started an Etsy page and almost immediately sales took off! Mostly the 99 problems shirt was selling but I was shipping shirts all over the U.S. and other countries like Australia, Canada and England.
Then one day I got an email from a woman that owned a store at the Polaris Mall that exclusively sold Ohio made goods called Simply Vague and she wanted to carry my shirts. At first it was just the 99 problems shirt but over time it has grown to a handful of different designs.
Since then I started doing some craft shows and drew the attention of other store owners and started growing more and more. 7THIRTY8 APPAREL is now in almost 20 stores across Ohio and counting as well as Pennsylvania.
I am now doing this as a full time job and have converted my detached garage into a full on print shop.
MY MISSION
I decided pretty quickly that I only wanted to print the kind of shirts that I would wear. That means soft, comfortable tees that were simple and creative in design. It's that simple.
Every 7THIRTY8 shirt is designed by me (unless otherwise noted) and printed by me by hand in house. I take this business very seriously and am involved in EVERY step of each shirt.