Actually, it Was about 15 years ago, in Chicago.

It all began at a bar, as most great stories do. I walked into a bar my friend managed, and as fate would have it, a young lady was screenprinting her art onto customer supplied apparel. I loved her work, so I asked her to print a cool skull design onto the hoodie I wore that night.

The rest, as they say, is history….

There was something so magical about seeing her run a squeegee across a glob of ink and then lifting up the screen to reveal her design, beautifully printed onto my hoodie. It was instant gratification, and as I walked out of the bar, wearing my newly inked hoodie, I realized that this was not only what I wanted to do, but what I needed to do.

The first time I failed miserably….

I dove head first into printing, partnered up with a local bar to print St. Patrick’s Day shirts, and then started following a killer band called The Chicago Afro-Beat Project, who let me do live screenprinting at their shows(see the pic to the left). I did a little bit of research, invested in a small “Printing for Dummies” kit, and went to work.

Thinking a cool design is all you need to make a cool t-shirt was the first mistake I made. I was fresh off my Graphic Design degree from the Art Institute, and thought my designs would revolutionize the world. But what good is a design if it is printed sloppy, off-sided, and lumpy? No good, as it would turn out.

I took on a 500 piece order for a law firm in Chicago, and unfortunately, it rained the day of their big event. Also unfortunately, I used a water-based ink for their shirts, and did not cure them correctly…so the designs literally washed off of the t-shirts as they got wet.

161385021_got-time-for-that-t-shirt-sweet-brown-bronchitis-tosh-.jpg — Lesson #2

After the Law Firm took everything I got…

I worked in a series of industries that allowed me to focus on designing. The toy industry was my favorite of them all, because it was just so off-the-wall and exciting. After my son, Brody was born, we moved back to our home town of Traverse City, Michigan, and I took on a job at an exciting new company called TentCraft. They brought me on as the chief designer, which gave me the opportunity to design logos, event marketing tents, and from time to time….even t-shirts.

The seed was officially planted. People started to realize when it came to t-shirts, I was REALLY good at creating compelling designs that made people smile. I started getting more and more requests to design shirts, until the fateful day a co-worker sent me a video of this incredibly funny woman named Sweet Brown, who, when referring to a fire in her apartment, claimed “Ain’t Nobody Got Time For That!”

It was like being struck by lightning….Memes were not really a thing back then, but I knew this woman needed to be on a t-shirt, and it needed to happen right now. I drew a simple design that I felt represented Ms. Brown well, and I threw it on Spreadshirt, a virtual t-shirt marketplace where I can make a little money off of any shirts that sell, without any initial costs.

By the end of the summer, I had sold thousands of these shirts, and it was a bonafide viral sensation. I proceeded to ride this wave, and started T-Shirt Addiction, which later became Concepts By BDW, and I designed hundreds of t-shirts. None had the success of “Ain’t Nobody”, but it scratched the itch that needed scratching.

My next big success was winning a t-shirt design contest for a hugely successful website called The Chive. They were(and still) a home to tons of brilliant t-shirts, so when they held a contest to design their next tee, I thought “it probably won’t happen.”

But then it did. I won cash prizes, free swag, and had my name featured on the site as the designer of “Beauty is in the eye of the Beer Holder.” And the shirt sold well too! I would check back from time to time and see it marked as sold out, which made me feel incredible.

But it wasn’t enough. I knew I had to do more with t-shirts, and I had to do it for myself, not third party websites. I wanted to do this locally, so I could not just oversee the design, but also the production. I also knew that if I was going to do this, I had to give it 100%, so I walked away from a great career at TentCraft, and I formed Tee See Tee. To say it came as a bit of a shock to my wife is an understatement, but like so many other crazy ideas I had in the past, she supported me regardless.

My wife hates when I call her the “Brains of the Operation.”

But she really is. Tee See Tee struggled in a big way the initial year(s), and a lot of it has to do with me not understanding important business terms like “profit margins,” “sales goals,” and “bankruptcy.” See the pic over there, look at the smile on that guy’s face! Now look at the price I am selling the tees for. $9.99….for a luxurious tri-blend t-shirt. In the end, I was probably making 50 cents for every shirt sold, and I was ecstatic about that! I just wanted people to wear my art, and didn’t concern myself with actually being sustainable.

Until it wasn’t.

Once I realized that I was bleeding money, and Tee See Tee was on the edge of extinction, I gathered up my courage, and I asked my wife to quit her job and come on board to help right this sinking ship. She thankfully agreed, and created a business strategy that set us on a course for continued success year-after-year!

Until it wasn’t.

The T-Shirt industry is shockingly cutthroat.

Year 5 for Tee See Tee was shaping up to be a monster. We were bouncing back from a big loss in 2018 when Younkers filed bankruptcy, sticking us with almost $100k in unpaid invoices, so I went into overdrive selling our apparel to customers all over the country! Everything was looking up, and Tee See Tee was really starting to become a house hold name, but with fame, came competition and animosity.

We had what we thought was a beautiful working relationship with several local print companies(not naming names), until we became too successful, and they decided, behind my back to try and force me out of the game by joining forces, and giving me no option but to use them exclusively for my printing, while simultaneously jacking up the prices and lowering the quality of my prints. I thought “This is the end” because I did not see any way out of this underhanded deal.

And then a robot appeared.

Well not really a robot, but a printing press. A Riley Hopkins 300 from Ryonet to be exact. My incredible father basically told me I was being a fool by trusting my work to companies that were essentially my competitors, and that the only way I would reach the next level is to control production with the same level of quality as I control the designs we put our name on. He helped me invest in the equipment, and I went to work putting together a team of what I now lovingly refer to as “Screenprint Scientists” to help me run T-Shirt Robot, our in-house print studio.

T-Shirt Robot is built on some fundamental lessons I have learned in the 15 plus years I have been in and out of the t-shirt industry:

Know the craft, Respect the craft. Chris, our head scientist, can tell you 90 different ways a t-shirt can be printed incorrectly, and he has spent the majority of his time here passing down his wealth of information to the rest of us, so we all know how to print a piece of apparel perfectly, every time.
Be honest. I have been burned more times than i can count by people I thought I could trust in this industry, and I decided from day 1 that T-Shirt Robot would be formed on a foundation of honesty and fairness. This extends not just to the customer, but to the people who work here. Happy employees are just as important as happy customers, and we like to surround ourselves with happiness:)
“No” is not acceptable. If its possible, T-Shirt Robot will make it happen. Heck, even if it is impossible, odds are T-Shirt Robot will make it happen(or send you to the right place). Point is, we hate the word “no”, and we will go out of our way to remove it from our vocabulary.

If you made it all the way to the final chapter of this autobiography/novel, I hope the takeaway is this; if you need awesome custom printed apparel, provided at a fair price, in a timely manner, and you want to feel good knowing you are supporting a family run, local company, look to the robots.

Beau Warren, Owner of T-Shirt Robot LLC.

A long time ago, in a city far, far away…

Actually, it Was about 15 years ago, in Chicago.

The first time I failed miserably….

After the Law Firm took everything I got…

My wife hates when I call her the “Brains of the Operation.”

The T-Shirt industry is shockingly cutthroat.

T-Shirt Robot Foundation for success:

What we do: