New To This Venture! Help?

[Myorangecamaro]

Hey all, my name is Tony. I was directed here because I was told you are the smartest, most helpful people on the planet! I am currently an engineer on a towboat, and after ten years I think it's time to go home. I've always been into cars, I have a few hot rods of my own, and was able to build one for sema last year.that being said I pulled the plug and built a brand new 40x60 shop. I am really wanting to get into vynil wrapping on vehicles of any kind, and with any luck, run a successful business. I am right near Tacoma and Seattle, wa. Can you guys help me with a starter plan as far as equipment goes and any other advice you may have? It would be very helpful! Thank you..
Tony

 

[WrapYourCar]

Buy Justin pate dvds.. he is a wrap legend. Then
Practice ... practice.. practice! And don't go too cheap / don't rush your jobs. Give yourself a nice install environment to make your job more comfortable.. and dirt free.

 

[ExecuPrintGS]

x2 on Justin Pate, subscribe to his website "the wrap institute" and take a few classes, he teaches the avery workshops, but 3M or lowen classes are great also.

 

[Gino]

Try putting a business plan together and sticking to it. Be prepared to spend some hefty bucks if you wanna follow your dream the right way. If you start cutting corners right off the bat, you'll be doomed and proably fail within a year, even without overhead.

Watch as many videos and utubes you can and most certainly take some classes, unless you can manage to go work for someone who will pay you to learn on their time.

What are your strong points in sign making, other than just a yearning to try it, cause tyou have some hot rods ?? Can you weld..... good on design software....... deal with people........ fix plotters and computers ??

Ya hafta be honest with hourself, cause nobody else will care whether you drop outta sight or not.

Good luck...............

 

[BigfishDM]

You can get into a 110 latex machine for literately nothing and that can handle all your printing, you will need a cutter and laminator also software. You should really just outsource until you know you can get customers, then when your ready, buy equipment. I still think outsourcing is the way to go for a startup.

 

[Johnny Best]

Your first job in the sign business.

 

[AKwrapguy]

Look at other shop in the area. See what their doing and not doing. Decide if you want to just do install or you want to design/produce your own graphics in-house and install.

Maybe look at getting a job at a local shop for a little while to see if it's something that you even really want to do. Wrapping vehicles is nice and all but it's just a small portion of what this industry is. There are many different things to take into account and with little to no experience/research you could end up in a regrettable situation pretty quickly. If money is not an issue maybe look at taking a simple shop hand job where you can get exposure to a plethora of things.

Probably the best advice is don't try to 'disrupt' the market with rock bottom prices. Just because your overhead is less that the typical shop, have competitive prices.