And again, and startups the same way, just start a business every three to five years. Get early access to clothing drops. It was a lot harder than I thought it was gonna be. It was. I love it. A series of car "troubles" experienced by Rishi and his beloved Ford Probe GT led to a chance encounter with a tow truck driver who used to dabble in screen printing in a former life. But this business is great. Oh, by the way, you're also teaching classes at the University of Michigan in entrepreneurship. Yeah. And it reveals a lot of your thinking, because you've grown a really successful business with Underground Printing, you're busy, you mentioned it's hard to run a business, I can attest to that, right? 
That's when UGP co-founders Rishi Narayan and Ryan Gregg met in 6th grade. 
It's just like all things like. Oh, that's my friend Brad. Contrary to the company timeline below, the story of Underground Printing really started in 1992. Where can the good folks in the MuskOx Herd follow you and listen to your podcast? We hope that continuing to concentrate on these things will take us to the next level in the future. But how can we learn to make sure we're growing and making things happen over the long term? So now, you know, Underground Printing, custom t-shirt manufacturer and retail stores in a whole bunch of college stores. That's where I feel the most comfortable as I will tell anyone. I know, this is one of the reasons I like I've wanted to start a podcast on my end was because I just love like, that's a that's really, really noble. Underground Printing, first known as A-1 Screenprinting, was founded in 2001 by childhood friends Rishi Narayan and Ryan Gregg while they were undergraduates at the University of Michigan. Most people that were starting businesses, we're selling something, or, or providing a service, but essentially, it was all sales of some sort, advertising websites, whatever it might. A great lesson. And I did feel a little bit of guilt. And what I think is interesting is, that's not a lesson just for hiring at a company. The company would become known as Underground Printing in 2004 upon the acquisition of a company with that name. So I needed to be able to tell people about that. And I wanted to get involved in other things. So things like that. I mean, I love your story so much, because it talks about hard work and dumb luck, and being willing to just take a chance and combining it all together. And I didn't have the golden goose guests that was gonna, like, drive me to, you know, you know, 100 million listeners or anything like that, for sure. I graduated from grad school, I couldn't say I was a student anymore. It's what makes us tick. So it's not like, hey, how do I squeeze an extra dollar out? So we're happy with it. And now, you know, I started to develop this kind of strategy at that time of the fast B which is basically like, you know, you don't need a get to the fast B because in real life nobody cares if you got A they just care if you got there, you know, and how and did you get there in time such for sure. And something is standing in their way.
Is that about right? So yeah, so I grew up in Indiana. There you go. But because they were so far apart. It was technically called A1 Screen Printing at the time because it was first in the phonebook. I don't know what company we'll be or what everything will look like at that time. No, my dad was a chemist and came to Purdue. And I've also found and I'd be interested in your take on this. And it was only until like, I realized I was really attracted into companies and markets and areas that had some, some tangential tie in back to all the things I like, or have tie in some way. Get him to smile. But yes, we're up there. But what makes for a good investment, right?
I think that I'm a believer in hedging. And for you, I'm asking you to put your investor hat on, and I'd like to come back to this in just a minute why you've decided to become an investor. You've got over 250 employees. You know, I think there's something to that. And so it was just, I lost the fun I'd rather be, I'd rather be small and be close than to have gotten the Series B or Series C and be very far from it, and still not profitable, still not accident. I think that's, that's fascinating, right? But there was a company we're pretty enamored with, was really doing really well in a space I knew really well. Or how would you word the email? We're happy with that. So my partner rang Greg and I, we, we were you know, we were easily distracted from our studies, let's just put it that way. in November we added four new digital machines in our main facility. In 2006, they opened their first retail store in Ann Arbor, and since then they have expanded to open locations throughout the country.
I think getting over it the first time for me, was, um, I talked about, I've talked about this before, but basically, it was understanding that I was not going to be at the top of my class at U of M in chemical engineering, that I wasn't into it as much as maybe others were, and that wasn't going to be my path. It's like if I just walk through it as and look at it just like an investment piece, then that I think is maybe, quote unquote, selfish, but if I look at it, like, "alright, what am I going to learn?" It's, you have to do it again. [3], In 2018, they partnered with the Pittsburgh Steelers to produce Stronger Than Hate shirts in the wake of the Tree of Life synagogue shooting. And then what was the point, because I'm just gonna get diluted down anyway. The same characteristics that set us apart then are the reason we are one of the nation's premier custom apparel providers now: an emphasis on customer service, quality, and convenience. I mean, some of it might have been dumb luck. But he does have the right compensation ask. I think I really like those lessons and tips and really try to take them to heart and how things are broken down. And I think this speaks volumes about your approach to learning. I told people, you know, when they were emailing back and forth or communicating in our systems like don't waste time putting thanks or thanks for your help or anything like everyone knows everyone else is thankful that's one extra email one extra thing to click on or whatever, like, that's a waste that's inefficient. And that's not really, that's just a facet, very small facet of chemical engineering. Not as bad as airlines and hotels? We can grow together with him. Little did I know, that was what he did. Right? But yeah, that was that was a factor.
And that's roots and family. And honestly, I feel bad now because like it was easy then had no risk, no responsibility. Give people time to adapt, like there is a cause for that, that actually can get you places faster than trying to just pull everyone along with you. Yeah. Right, because in college, it was kind of like, you had this serendipity moment of this tow truck driver, which, yeah, was was sort of a nice kick in the ass for for you to actually start this t-shirt company. UGP moves production from a 3,000 sqf shop to a 12,000 sqf production facility. In class, I actually take a little bit of time to talk about, like, how to write emails, best ways to sign off. I was just you know, checking out the site as of recently because of your email blast you just sent out a couple days ago. Yeah, it's hard to convince someone that you can like hedge three things when you've taken a million dollars or something like that. Your audiences change, you know, generations. ft. Ann Arbor, MI (South University location). I think was coming from me. Subscribe to get special offers, free giveaways, and awesome content. So I've actually pulled back and I think I'm more interested in businesses that I know, I'm more interested in businesses that don't have aspirations of exiting, and don't have aspirations of raising multiple rounds, both have aspirations of raising one round, and then existing and turning a profit or whatever. So when someone asked what I did, I had to basically say, you know, this is what I do, I print t-shirts. I was lucky, lucky to have gotten it right. And it was going really well, the founder we weren't lukewarm on. That's because that's what makes us go. After the Tree of Life Synagogue tragedy in Pittsburgh, PA, In March, UGP added retail collections to. A couple of my lessons learned that I've had people I work with that have, you know, taught me some hard lessons giving me some hard feedback. Seven new UGP office locations opened up: Additionally, in October we launched a newly redesigned. It was a "what I thought I should be/what my definition of success was/what I thought my path was supposed to be". Like what makes for a good risk versus return ratio, where you're you're not taking that risk, so to speak, but you're actually making a smart investment. But I did happen to go back. And, and so for me, investing really is it's B school, for me, it has been, like I've always owned up to this is like, I don't really expect to get an ROI on a lot of my investments. The. And I was taking a difficult, you know, course, and that was where a lot of my pride was, and to then kind of go into this world of like, yet, but, you know, printing t-shirts, which, you know, for a while, like I didn't even want to own up to I kind of put it on the side, it was like I just print, I do this fun thing on side, but I'm an engineer, like that's what I do. So, you know, that was my path. You know, that's what I loved about President Obama, like such a great speaker. You can do the side hustle, if you have another job.
Ask anyone who's run a business, they will tell you, it's hard to run a business, and you're still running the business. Well, thank you so much, Rishi, really appreciate it. That's good with me. Total amount raised across all funding rounds, Total number of Crunchbase contacts associated with this organization, Total number of employee profiles an organization has on Crunchbase, Total number of investment firms and individual investors, Descriptive keyword for an Organization (e.g. And I thought that was chemical engineering. I think you have to like keep honing it. And I think that's really interesting, because we all learn so much when you can step outside, running the day to day business. So I was lucky enough to stumble into t-shirts along the way in college, through a chance encounter with a tow truck driver. So you're a busy man. But my parents are from India. It was a good distance away, but still close enough to home and went to U of M to be an engineer. And a couple years after that, company tanked. Like, you know, great commencement speeches, you know, I eat those things up, I love commencement speeches, right? I was very guilty of that. Because, it's so hard to do that. I agree. And you're certainly still running this business. Underground Printing offers embroidery, digital printing, and screen printing services for a wide range of apparel and promotional products, including polo t-shirts, pens, hats, magnets, jerseys, sweats, and more. Thank you so much for joining us. Yes. And I'm going to be good at that. So how did you learn that? And I slowly began to realize that what I loved was entrepreneurship. I certainly believe the harder you work, the luckier you get. For sure. Okay.
And, you know, as I think both culturally that was important. But, you decide to get a master's degree. So you're growing this t-shirt business and at that point, you kind of know this is what you want to do. It may very well be after some of the things over we talked about, you know, ourselves, you and I. Sure, you learn some things along the way. So we talked a lot about tone. Which is interesting, right? My dad was a professor of chemical engineering both at Purdue and then at Michigan State and so I was a prototypical academic/academics kid, you know, definitely overachiever type, you know, wanted to take APs and do really well and be considered one of the smartest kids in school, I thought I was going to be a professor like my dad. And so, lately, I've just been breaking down all problems down to communication or all successes down to great communication, you know, or poignant communication, whatever it might be. You know, look I'm, that's still an area I'm learning like all areas, I would say I learned a very interesting lesson, when it comes to investments pretty early on, where there was a company that we were pretty enamored with, and I'll leave all the names out of it. And it was a hard lesson for me but a good one about you know, of course, it's cliche, of course you bet on the person and but no, but when it's really attractive when the horse is really, really gonna win, like you really have a feeling about that horse and the jockey you don't know about, like, it's really tempting, every single time, it's tempting. And I had a brief stint living in Berkeley, California. And now I do it for me. It is potentially pending a name change but you know we'll keep the redirect on. So yeah, as you allude to, I went and realized very quickly that I didn't really want to be an engineer. So, that's an example. Oh, that's clearly important running a business and investor. Six new UGP office locations are opened up: Oakland, CA in January, Miami, FL and, in May, Seattle, WA and Savannah, GA in July, and Nashville, TN. And I think it's, for us, it's like, yeah, we'll figure out a way to come out on the other side of this, you know, in 12 to 18 months, or whenever the world kind of opens back up fully. So at the time, when you when we started that business, you know, they're like, you know, it wasn't you weren't raising money, by and large, you know, unless you had, like, amazingly, had developed some amazing technology or something like that at a young age, but you weren't creating apps, there wasn't the tech infrastructure, and you weren't really raising money. How are you doing? UGP provided event T-shirts for Colts linebacker Darius Leonard's event. [4], During the COVID-19 pandemic, in March 2020, Underground Printing sold Flatten the Curve t-shirts in which proceeds directly benefited local businesses in towns like Ann Arbor, MI, Madison, WI, Evanston, IL, Iowa City, IA, Morgantown, WV, Grand Rapids, MI, and New Windsor, MD.[5]. Underground Printing is an American retail company that makes custom apparel and items. Yeah. Throw you know, maybe any savings aside, you know, these are these are difficult things and I, you know, I remember like when we started the company and started, that at a very early age, sophomore in college, just got to get, and get a lot of kudos for being so young. You should have a talk with that model. Like, you don't use that word in your normal everyday vocabulary, you can't expect people to read it in emails, right. And I was so much of my own self worth and ego kind of in this idea that I was an engineer, you know, a chemical engineer, not even an Elon, I was the difficult major. So you know, it was definitely an identity thing. And honestly, it was like: "well, you know, how big is it going to be and like how successful am I going to be at it and I essentially like talked myself out of it was like well, but if I don't have a lot of listens and you know, what are people gonna think about it?" San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley), Operating Status of Organization e.g. And sometimes sheer hard luck and sheer will can get you there. And that's not necessarily always true. I worked at my dad's lab in high school, and I really loved it. It isn't, how did you get over it and never had to get over again, I have to get over it every single time. Norman, OK near campus at the University of Oklahoma, Ann Arbor near the "Big House" - Michigan Stadium, Lincoln, NE near campus at the University of Nebraska.
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