People definitely want to be able to choose and make things unique to them, especially
in today’s society, I think.
What companies like Printful really allow you to do is take advantage of that and offer
a total ton of options.
My name is Chad Price, and I’m one of the co-founders of Kettlebell Kings.
We are an online retailer of kettlebells and everything surrounding kettlebells.
We started our company about five years ago.
There’s three owners that actually own the company.
The three of us were just all college buddies, and we decided to open up a fitness company,
and here we are five years later.
We had been friends since we were about eighteen years old.
Once we graduated college, we all wanted to stay and do something competitive, still work
together, still have some type of team camaraderie, and this is kind of our new outlet to do so.
Kettlebells are actually an ancient tool, but in the fitness world, I guess, relatively,
you’d consider them new.
When we first started, everything was obviously about getting the best quality kettlebells
that we could and offering our customers the highest-quality content around those kettlebells.
And so as our brand grew, we started the Kettlebell Kings community, which is kind of a self-sustaining
community of kettlebell enthusiasts who like to participate in events, they like to share
communication about new techniques, new ideas, new kettlebells, the best products out there.
And so at that point we really realized that we needed to start branching out, having apparel,
having things that people could use and take with them, and purchase for their friends
and family.
We found Printful due to necessity.
We started out building our own apparel department.
We started with one shirt, all the sizes and colors required.
And then we started with the second color and third color.
and then we realized we need another shirt.
At about three shirts in we realized it was going to become overwhelming trying to manage
an apparel department, and we really wanted to stay focused on our main products, our
main SKUs, and we just didn’t know how to get to at least a baseline-level of inventory
that was at least recognized as a credible store.
So companies like Printful allow us to go in and really build out a store that looks
credible.
Even for a small-sized company you can still have a reputable looking apparel section.
People were preferential to having more options and having the availability in every color
versus the one or two colors we were actually able to carry in-house.
As far as where we draw inspiration for our logos and designs, I would say mainly from
the three of us and what we envision around kettlebells and the vision of the company.
We really like the shape of the kettlebell, so you will see a lot of things that we do
be focused around that shape in some way, shape or form.
I think alliteration and things like that go a long way in those types of concepts.
One of the things that Printful allows us to do as well is to choose different shirts
as owners.
We can all choose a different design and which one we think is going to be popular, and it
allows us to test it without having to go and make an upfront purchase.
It’s kind of a fun game we can play behind the scenes of “My style is the best” or
“No one liked your style” kind of deal.
So that’s fun sometimes.
I think we all have different dreams as owners of where the company goes, but I think at
the end of the day where they come together is - we want to build a wellness company.
So our company is really focused around kettlebells, but it’s really around the community, and
it’s really around building a healthy lifestyle.