a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and then the Kids Zone is open 8:00 a.m. at 12 p.m. in the competition pool 5:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. there will be a full closure notice or they're closing the leisure pulled the family pool in the back from Saturday, May 19th to Sunday June 3rd for maintenance but I think the competitive pool still be open so if you want to do and things like that that's still a possibility and then they posted their summer hours all right well I don't want to belabor that but I just want to let you know about those updates with trail point and then again pharmacology class and then if you want to take chemistry with me I'm also teaching two sections in Ankeny and fall one section in Newton and I also teach pharmacology and fall so just get in touch with me at [email protected]  and now let's get started with the show. Okay, well welcome to the Ankeny Podcast I am here on South Ankeny Boulevard with the owner of Wees Tees Randy Wee and I just want to say first welcome to the Ankeny Podcast. Well, thank you very much. I'm excited to be a part of this and I'm looking forward to being involved. So, let's start with your entrepreneurial journey everyone's entrepreneurial journey is a little bit different most people start with maybe a job and then they end up working for themselves tell me a little bit about your transition um mine was kind of accidental actually I used to coach college baseball and in-between jobs at UNI and Northern Illinois I took a job selling screen printing and athletic clothing for a company called Kraft Cochrane and then I left that continue college coaching and then after I left education in 2008 I worked for a non-profit and work from home and I had a lot of downtime a lot of time to hate to figure out what I was gonna do so my boss would always tell me to take walks but instead I wanted to figure out a way to make money. Okay, so I started selling athletic clothing and team clothing out of out of my house and going around visiting people and did that for a couple years and just took off okay well what was your mission at the outset you know in terms of so did you just want to work focus on high school teams college teams how did you decide what you're gonna do local how did you kind of decide what your niche was initially my niche was just dealing with with youth teams okay and then some of my friends that coach high school baseball ideal some of their stuff but then it really took off when I did the season finale shirt for the University of Northern Iowa baseball they dropped baseball. I did their last ever shirt for their program and business kind of took off and you know and then I had a friend it kept saying I went on a screen printing shop Karl Chambers my business partner he kept saying you bug me for two years okay let's see what we can do okay okay I'm from the East Coast so I'm used to going down to Ocean City and every year they would obviously have you know spring break or you know this year this summer it would be twenty well back then it would be like 1984 1985 1986 so what other I guess in terms of businesses did you have any business experience before you started Wees Tees because the failure rate on businesses is like you know after a year it's like one survives out of ten and then five years later another one ten percent of those survive how did you do so well so quickly well I think there are several factors one it's just dumb luck I had no business experience I had never taken a business class okay I was in education I so I think luck was one two there was a demand for it there's a huge demand for a custom clothing in a lot of different areas in the metro and then I think three I hired really good people and you know I like to say we scared more business away our first couple years by not knowing how to do things oh and so the last four years four and a half years has been awesome for us with the right staff with the right process with good customer service.   But I'm serious I feel very lucky too we borrowed credit cards I stole from my personal savings and we started a business and it was very very lucky okay okay well everyone once you become a business owner in town people think it was all pretty easy [Laughter] oh it all worked out now that your your great success you know I see you're building the golf course in the back yeah but what what was the biggest challenge that you had cuz most entrepreneurs if they can survive that big challenge there's usually one thing or one day or one week or one month that just was wow that was just that was really rough and we made it you know the biggest challenge honestly was not knowing what I need to know okay so many times I would not know what to do and tell the situation arose go I never thought that situation ever gonna arise you can't write a business plan about what you don't know yes and I wrote them things and we've plans of things but you know how to handle different situations and we made lots of mistakes we booked equipment in and inside on a bunch of equipment for a year we you know we've made some bad decisions but I've got a you know I survived because of our staff because of our customers and all because I've I have a really intelligent and kind business partner Karl Chambers who helps me figure things out on a regular basis okay well most of the great companies do have business partners and I don't want to put you into tech but you know Microsoft there was really two or three of them you know Apple same thing there's two of them and and what is your role the when partners come together usually one has one as I don't say more outgoing but one tends to talk with the public one tends to like to be more behind-the-scenes where are you and what is your favorite role as part of a business well I coral is a silent partner he comes and we meet once or twice a week doesn't really have anything to do with the business except provide advice and give suggestions and be a sounding board and then I run the day-to-day operations and do a lot of the sales so I'm the one that's actively involved okay and then how many employees do you have we fluctuate between six and eight okay depending on the season okay and then in terms of you know what products you offer its customer but for example I I was doing the markets market relay actually we're doing market to market relay in 48 hours we're gonna be getting up at four o'clock went up to Jefferson coming down 75 miles and it's our third year doing it but my one of the guys said oh I want to do the t-shirts I want to do t-shirts then three weeks before I was like so to do the t-shirts as I can I didn't call me back so I said all right well now I know a guy hey you need to you need to call him you know we've got three weeks till it starts tell me a little bit about how would someone refer you like when you say okay I do custom team equipment that's a huge range like for every sport for high school sports where would you even start is there a catalog we have a lot of different suppliers we have hundreds and hundreds of suppliers so it's really tough to get everything in front of everybody we're trying to work on our website now to do that but it's our main area is custom clothing whether it's it's clothing you wear on your body or on your head whether it's a team uniform for a business or for a team for a high school or college or youth team for sports and then equipment that goes around around that area and we do decoration in towards a screen print embroidery and then the advertising products the promotional products that go with that so we was a singing poster banner a poster pens koozies you know window clings you know the chargers for your phones you can travel and I mean anything you could put a logo on week and some things but most things we do in-house but a lot of things we also do outside the shop from people that actually produce those promotional products but all our decorations grand printing embroidery heat set is done in-house but usually the person ordering these things is not being paid usually they're a volunteer or maybe they're a parent maybe they're a coach maybe they're with a school how what's the process for someone that comes in with maybe hey my we need uniforms for the whole team and then how do you take care of them during a whole season because my wife is just commenting on the NBA season being like 15 months long or something like that where it's just on and on and on how do you work with somebody through the season and then into the next season typically at the high school season it's usually six months ahead when they're doing things for the teams for the booster clubs it's usually a month to two months ahead and then for the elementary schools it's usually a month ahead for their further you know their spirit water for their school but typically people call up start up with a phone call or an email and kind of give us an idea what they want or they stop in and we try to explain to them that the process is they need to have an art idea they need to have a type of clothing idea and once we have what an idea whether right before we can put that down and approve for them and send them out approvals for the art health sighs them for their uniform or their clothing for their whether it's a t-shirt or a baseball or softball uniform and and then decorate the garment in depending on what you do the process can be a week two up to six to eight weeks you know because there's four heat setting something it's a lot quicker then it is if we're getting a sublimated uniform which can be okay now you're talking you're talking jargon yeah let's start with the difference what's he'd say well heat set is a vinyl product you put on your on your clothing it's usually people think of their name or numbers is okay but you can also do a custom decoration find all my girlfriend in high school I earn my Jersey and I lost a letter then you have screen printing which is an ink that you you press on with the screen printing machine it's it's squeegee done and you can do from one color up to depending on what shop you're at up to 12 or 15 colors and that is typically what people think of when they think of custom shirts there's also transfers that look like screen printing but they're also iron-on but they look more like a screen print then then there's embroidery which is what you're wearing right now with your d-mac honors program it's actually thread that we're sewn onto the shirt so so as soon as you see someone is the first thing you look at whatever they got that shirt oh they printed it and then even in this cool thing that's going on right now at the industry there's their sublimation which is actually you get it at a uniform or a shirt and it's printed out on a roller and it's dyed into the fabric okay yeah so it's on the shirt so you can have as many colors on it as possible but those machines are so expensive that a lot of times those are done by the manufacturer today and that's a really cool process I know a lot of times I'll do a race and before they give me the shirt I'll feel it and if it feels too raised I won't take it just because I know it'll my skin yes so that's the kind of thing you're talking about where it's just not gonna bother you you know it's part of the fabric yeah and then yeah it's but they're more expensive in the process the production time of those is anywhere from 4 to 16 weeks depending on where you get it from okay all right how did you decide to be here so I think you said we're in an old shirts I'm I'm new to Ankeny I've only been here ten years so but my wife has been in Ankeny all her life so 35 years but you started back in 11 what made you choose here in the middle of you know on Ankeny Boulevard well we wanted somewhere with high traffic flow okay and we also wanted something that was cost-effective being a new business and this meant both those requirements ideally it's not a great great spot because it's four different levels okay that's got the right square footage we have we want but it's I mean it met those requirements we have a lot of traffic Luther people drive by on a regular basis I'm in a Ridge we're also gonna be able to put a sign up originally but they turn that down after the fact that there's no sign there but you know right now we're out of space and we're not in really good functional space all right you're looking to move and be in more uptown and I'm Ankeny between the clipper and and Bryan how long have you been in Ankeny I grew up here okay and I graduated in 87 I went to college and moved away until the fall of 2000 we moved back from Illinois so can you tell me a little bit about what's going on with Uptown because it seems like there's a resurgence it it was it was probably pretty well attended when you were back here in the early eighteen L [Music] it seems to be there's some some bit of resurgence coming back fire trucker I know is a staple there or so certainly a place that you can hear say okay well it's this place from fire trucker and I know that they're there building down there what makes you decide to come down to Uptown I keep wanting to call it downtown anytime in North Ankeny so it's downtown for me but it's uptown well for one it's personal for me growing up here I think it's an area that needs to be rejuvenated sure I'm also on the Uptown Association Board of Directors okay so uh it's it's a natural fit I think it's a growing area with the bike trail with with the pavilions with fire truck or leading towers up there Walnut Street gallery uptown food and beverage the Clipper I mean I there's many more stores that are really popular there but they're also doing some new development in regards to housing and also new business development that's gonna make it a lot more attractive area for people to visit okay well tell me a little bit about your so is the business just local so local teams are you statewide are you national are you international just always curious to see how far you reach because obviously it seems like you've outgrown your space you've it's you've only been bit I want to say only been in business seven years but you've experienced a lot of growth what where's your market um it's mainly in Polk County but we do work throughout the state of Iowa and we also do some orders in Illinois Missouri Minnesota and even as far west as California okay but it's not a predominant part of our business the only thing internationally do is we have a couple followers on Facebook internationally okay website they're trying to figure out the sublimation thing oh yeah it looks really cool it's really cool okay what do you think is unique about your business you know I thought about this because there's it there's thousands of screen printers decorated across the country and one of the reasons I opened my business up was I used to contract printout people okay as the coach no is it well no like when I was selling out of my house okay I had to find printers to print my stuff for people okay and the thing I was really frustrated with was when something went well I people told me thank you but I didn't really do it then when something went wrong I had to take responsibility for it and it wasn't my funds but most the time things went wrong I didn't get something I didn't got something on time they would lose my product so I think our on-time percent for screen printing is over 99% I mean we we just deliver really yeah I mean we're really good I mean we don't we do insult you but that's just just really high we because it's always been delayed now if something's late it's because something's backordered okay or in the production process we damaged the government and we get everything done and then we Reaper the other government later okay that but I mean we get everything done on with screen printing in the things that will delay screen printing or if somebody can't give you sizes okay or if they don't approve art you know so any of those things to think those things happen it really delays a process but once arts approved we're always delivering you're the person that does that keeps after them all right you need to call them again find out if they approve the artist doesn't collection manage it follows up on our artists and also follows up with other customers and then yeah but ii think the most unique thing about us is I think our staff is very stable you know there's a ton of turnover in this industry we've had Eric that's been or six years Jake that's been in six years Riley and Mike been or two and a half years Sarah was here for six and a half years and just left that's a really long time yeah I know so I think that's unique about our business as we know our customers and our customers know us okay so what you mentioned a little bit of involvement in the Ankeny community tell me a little bit more about how you're involved and how it fits in the business talking about maybe a little bit more about uptown or other places that you're involved so I mean it could be as little as as much as you know coaching your kids teams or whatever it is yeah I get mention I'm in the Uptown Association I'm also in a BNI group I'm in a another Power Group that there's business owners it meets every other week and then I'm involved in Kiwanis and I try to stay involved some of the school functions at the high school level and elementary level to stay involved with what they're doing in regards their fundraising and their booster clubs and then like you mention I do code I've coached my kids okay youth teams over the years is that so just this is no just a personal question not not with the business I really struggle to coach my own children cuz when they when something goes wrong it's really tough for me to be the person talking to him do you have an assistant coach that's like oh this one's my kid all right can you talk to him or do have any strategies for that because I know many parents have to coach their own kids and it's sometimes a little bit that's sometimes very tough you know that was really difficult for me I've always been one that my kids gonna play less it'll be harder on my kid unless everybody else can see that there's so much better than everybody because usually most people coach League right kids get a play all right so my daughter really struggled that she said I don't get a coach anymore for like three years and I understood that my son is like I don't care just do what you need to do it's been it's actually been a struggle because I I don't think my own kids have been able to enjoy athletics with me coaching as much as a lot of people coach them yeah same with my dad I was always a midfielder with soccer because well you can't be the forward because then I'm showing favoritism yes you'd have to be all the way in the back so let's put you as a midfielder that way you can you can get a goal if you really struggle but you can't be up front you know just hitting the easy one unless you're so much faster but yeah you know you're putting luck but that didn't happen that way yeah yeah so well they say that the entrepreneur is someone who works 80 hours so they don't have to work 40 hours for someone else and and sometimes that's in the pejorative sometimes it's it's just how it is you just enjoy what you do but what advice would you give to maybe someone who who's like you know I just I just don't like working for other people I would prefer to work for myself I'd prefer to do things my way what's the biggest piece of advice you would give them um first thing is take more time to plan before you open up you know plan and then plan and then over plan again and then also make sure you have more money than you think you really need okay and then the last thing is on the thing I was unprepared for as a college in high school baseball coach I thought about baseball all the time but for the time I woke up the time went to bed what I could do differently better how I could you know whether it was recruiting whatever as a business owner I've taken it I also find that to case what bit business I might not be physically at work or working from home but my mind is always on the finances employees customers short long term goals and so somebody that wants to open a business they need to be prepared for at times being very distant from other parts our lives because your mind will not get off their business yeah okay all right well what's the best way for someone to contact you they can contact me at Randy at wheeze teas calm and that is spelled w E tea EES calm or they can call us at 517 927 well thanks so much for being on the Ankeny podcast thank you support for this episode comes from the audiobook memorizing pharmacology a relaxed approach with over 9,000 sales in the United States United Kingdom and Australia it's the go-to resource to ease the pharmacology challenge available on audible iTunes and amazon.com in print ebook and audiobook