Prince gets interviewed by Pro Paintball

Pro Paintball just recently interviewed Prince check out the full story on his 2010 plans here.

Sneak Peak at our paintball pants

Here's a sneak peak at the paintball pants we will be releasing in the next 4 weeks at the Phoenix PSP event. More to come, there's going to be some bad ass color schemes going on with these!

First look into the just about finished warehouse/showroom

I promised this video a while ago. This is a pretty in depth look at the new PBRack office/ showroom/ warehouse. The showroom is open to the public by appointment now, check out pbrack.com for more info.

Rack Custom site finished

Finally got our side project Rackcustom.com finished... make sure to check it out I think it came out pretty solid. We also have the office all up and running the comcast people just came yesterday and got our internet up and rolling so as of tomorrow all operations will be ran out of there. The showroom looks awesome, make sure to come by this Friday or Saturday if you get the time as we are going to be kicking back all weekend.

Right now we are working on getting our paintball pants finished up and ready to release by the Phoenix PSP. We also have the whole new summer line of clothing that we are suppose to be releasing in 1 month so we got a lot of work ahead of us with both of these companies cranking at full steam. More updates coming tomorrow.. and hopefully a new video of the warehouse.

Busy Busy Busy= new site for printing

We've been crazy busy as usual but I don't even know if we can call it crazy busy since it seems like we are always busy so I guess we are just busy actually. Either way we just had our boy Dylan from Pistol River Creative come over and do a big space mural on our ceiling of our showroom in Auburn. Turned out great especially for being upside down the whole time. We should have the showroom open to the public by next weekend. We are just getting internet in this week so we should be fully up and running again in about 4-5 days, really excited about that. We also have been getting crazy amounts of screen printing orders through our side business Rack Customs, so we decided to get a nice little site going for it. Here's a snap shot of the work in progress should be ready for release in about a week or so. We are also working on a whole new PBRack site that will be really cool to view.

Killer Sale week

Check the site for some killer sales DAWG

1 week into setting up the new warehouse/office

This was taken mid last week so we've been hard at work expect another vid of our progress this week, and we should be getting close to opening for business next week.

Our boy Dillan's last skate comp

Some more footage from our boy Dillan was sent to us today, looks like this is from the most recent Skate Barn contest. Good stuff

Some cool news about Siewers

Our boy and Team Manager Greg Siewers decided to play with Aftershock for the X ball season. It sounds like Shock also picked up some X Philly guys so I think Aftershock will be a really good team next year, I'm really excited to catch some games. We also have some very big pick ups to our pro team coming in the next few weeks so keep your eyes on the look out for some HUGE names.

Business tips for anyone thinking of running a company

Right now it's harder than ever to maintain a growing business or for that matter start a business. I did a little research and it shows that there's only about a 25% chance that your new business will last 4 years. Now here's the thing that most people who want to start a business don't understand, and that's the fact that your not expected to make money for the first 2-3 years and given this economy lets be safe and double that to 4-6 years. Now that being said your lucky if you can break even on your 2nd or 3rd year but odds are you are going to be loosing a good amount of money throughout these building years.

I personally had an aunt and uncle recently move from Spain to the US to start a specialty print company. They came with only enough money to run the business free and clear for about 6 months. It didn't really cross there minds that they had to build there brand and there company for years before they should really see a profit of any kind. This is leading to a world of problems for them and are forced to pack up and move back to Spain with a big financial loss.

The reason I bring this up is all the time in the Paintball and Skate industry you can see "clothing companies" or other small companies start and end all in the same quarter due to the fact they produce a line and don't see a profit, given the fact they lost money they drop the endeavor all together. Talking to long time friend and business affiliate Jimmy Hickey it seems that most students are under the impression that they need to complete there schooling before they are expected to make money. Devoting all of there time and resources to getting a good grade in school, while the fact of the matter is you could be at school and growing your brand and business through the growing years so that when you do graduate a schooling program your that much further ahead in your career.

I have people all the time who are so entrained with what I do that they think they can start there own brand and make it big. The fact of the matter is I started PBRack in 2005 and didn't turn a profit on the company for years, I also started the company when I was 16 and just getting started in the world of competitive paintball. At age 21 now I'm able to support my self fully with very comfortable living while also maintaining a hand full of part time staff and operating our new warehouse/office. Another thing to keep in mind especially in a down economy is getting creative with your services. Questions to ask your self and your employees- How can we be more productive for less money? Can we offer any more services to bring in extra money? Can we do anything to promote our company that doesn't take away from the bottom line?

Key point I would advise to take from this quick write up are-
1. Don't plan to start a company and make money for 4-6 years, chances are you wont
2. The clothing industry is one of the most competitive industries in the world without prior knowledge of it I would advise venturing into something else
3. It's never to early to start building your brand or company
4. Get creative- business is always going to be competitive, get creative and you'll throw your competitors a curve ball

-Tommy Tucker
Owner PBRack