Ever wonder how to start a silk screen business? It costs almost nothing to start a t-shirt printing business at home. I read about one guy who started a screen printing business with almost nothing. He made the screens with used lumber, and fabric from an old wedding dress. He screen printed signs, which he sold. He also screen printed magnets, and shirts, and baseball caps. He actually made his own screen printing press. In fact I bought the plans from him on ebay for his screen printing press, and built my own.
At one point I seriously looked at starting my own screen printing business. I ultimately decided there were other things I would rather do. But it wouldn’t be that hard, or expensive. It would cost under $100 to buy the stuff to screen print t shirts. The absolute minimum stuff you would need would be a screen, photo emulsion, a cheap light, ink, squeegee, masking tape, and t-shirts. For another hundred, you could buy a single shirt screen printing press. Screen printing a t-shirt only uses pennies worth of ink for each shirt. You can get blank shirts on sale at Michaels for $3-4 each. Or you can buy them in quantity for cheaper. I have seen boxes of shirts for sale on ebay.
What I have seen some people do is print shirts, and sell them on ebay. If that is what you are interested in doing, check out eBay, and find what kind of shirts people are buying. Are they buying dog shirts, cat shirts, karate shirts, etc. Find which shirts are selling. Develop your own original artwork, print a few shirts, and list them on ebay.
Some other screen printing business opportunities would be bands, baseball teams, family reunions, etc. If you know someone who needs t-shirts offer your services, and make a small profit. Make sure you do a good quality job. After you have done some jobs, you will likely get referred business by word of mouth. You can always get some business cards printed up, and post them on bulletin boards in your area.
If you have some other ideas, or questions on how to start a silk screen business, feel free to post here.

Posted by Rob in Screen Printing on May 26th, 2006 |