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FAQ: How Have We Made It 21 Years?

Unbelievably, this september marks 21 years of RAYGUN.

Even though I own this place, I’m even a little surprised it’s still here, 

This started a small store in 2005. Total staff of 1. I opened the store, closed the store, rang up every sale, printed every shirt, unclogged the toilet after you clogged the toilet (you know who you are!). 

And yet, we have grown into a $19 million company with 12 locations and 130 employees. 

We're as surprised as you are.

After all, we have not exactly picked the easiest route for business growth: 

  • we have no controlling investors,
  • have never taken private equity money,
  • have no corporate board — it’s just us and a bunch of debt!
  • we have made brick and mortar, community-based retail the core of our company, instead of the internet; 
  • we still design and print everything ourselves, refusing to outsource production or to move from screen printing to digital printing;
  • heck, we even unionized our entire staff, production and retail;

How did we do it?

Well i’m not quite sure!

Even when you are running something, you are kind of along for the ride with everyone else.

We have had several financial near-death experiences. There have been some absolutely painful stretches. We’ve mainly done just well enough each year to keep doing it another year. 

So the RAYGUN model is NOT a get-rich-quick scheme.

Heck, not even a get rich slowly scheme.

But the fact that we’re still here makes people curious about how we did it. 

Over the years i’ve fielded lots of questions from customers, students, other companies.

And i’ve decided that to celebrate 21 years.

I will make a series of videos through the fall answering questions about out. 

These are not necessarily meant to be business advice videos (some of the best decisions i made stemmed from ignoring advice!). 

The main lesson from this place is that it has been a mix of circumstance. 

We’ve worked hard, but circumstances have gone our way to this point.

These videos will probably just re-emphasize that building anything is hard, keeping it going is even harder, building it from there is EVEN harder. 

And that difficulty is what makes the satisfaction of it’s MERE EXISTENCE so satisfying! 

Being a part of this place has been an incredible experience. 

Since high school, I've always wanted to be a part of something creative, and I feel lucky that RAYGUN is a small link in the never ending chain of cool stuff people make.

I owe a lot to customers, the community, and especially to my co-workers.

I've learned a lot, and i hope this video series can convey that. 

So if you have questions about RAYGUN, just leave them in the comments, emails us, come into our stores and ask them. 

I'll make a video for each one and we’ll steadily put them out.

I hope my appreciation for all those who have worked with us and supported us comes through in these things!

So let the questions fly!