Anchorfish Printing started as a side hustle, like many print shops. During the after-hours in a small Southern California shop, founder Michael Martin started learning the ropes of running a print business by creating custom branded merchandise for local bands.
As he began to build a bigger customer base, Michael says it was time to expand his operations.
“Eventually, I opened up my own shop with a single manual press and was fulfilling orders for Southern California punk and hardcore bands,” he explains. “It kind of grew nationwide, still primarily in the punk and hardcore scene, and later we started delving more into B2B stuff.”
Today, Anchorfish has resettled in the Chicago area, with sales outposts in Southern California and Texas. Their services now range from screen printing and embroidery to direct-to-film (DTF) and live printing at festivals and events.
The Search for Shop Management Tools
As the business continued to grow, Michael encountered hurdles in balancing the volume of work with accuracy and speed. Managing quotes, invoices, and orders with patchwork solutions worked during the early phases, but he says he sought new solutions.
“I was generating quotes in Excel, bookkeeping in Excel, and then exporting that over into QuickBooks,” Michael explains. Orders gradually became more time-consuming, and Anchorfish needed a better way to do business.
“Printavo Changed the Game for Us”
Roughly four years ago, Anchorfish implemented Printavo, and Michael says he’s seen a shift since then.
“Printavo has allowed us to stay so much more organized and professional,” he notes. “We win jobs constantly just by having automations and a clean interface. It gives us that big-box professionalism while we still keep that small business connection.”
Michael points to automated follow-ups as a major driver of repeat sales and customer retention.
“We win just as many quotes on the two- or five-day reminder as we do on the initial,” he adds.
The new setup also gave Anchorfish clarity into trends and performance.
“[With Printavo] we can see reports that let us track growth and know whether we’re moving in the right direction or need to pivot faster,” Michael says.
With those results, the business has continually added new customers to their roster.
“It allowed us to take on a contractor that probably doubled our sales the first year,” he adds.
Courtesy: anchorfishprinting.com
Community Connection
With Printavo strengthening operations in the background, Michael says Anchorfish continued to lean into its creativity and community core values. He points to Chicago’s Market Days, one of the largest street festivals in the city and the biggest Pride event of the year, as a high-water mark for the company in terms of community engagement and growing the Anchorfish name.
The shop enhanced that engagement with live printing all the event merchandise, giving festival-goers a front-row seat to the screen-printing process.
“It was non-stop the whole time,” he notes. “People love seeing the process, and it’s engaging in a way you forget when you’re in the shop every day.”
That visibility paid off in multiple ways. Festival attendees left not just with shirts but with a deeper connection to Anchorfish as a brand. Some came back year after year to collect new designs. “At festivals we’ve done repeatedly, people will come up and say, ‘We’re here for our 2024 shirt—we remember last year’s,’” Michael says.
Printing at events like venue parties and street fairs is a big part of the business’s draw. (Courtesy: Anchorfish Instagram)
Live printing also created partnerships with event organizers and strengthened community ties.
“It’s a great way to tie yourself to the event coordinator and endear yourself to the local community,” Michael explains. “It’s marketing that doesn’t feel like marketing, it’s just being part of something people love.”
Looking Ahead
For a shop that started by printing merch for small punk shows, Michael says Anchorfish’s roots are still a big part of how they envision the future: staying rooted in the community, but on a much bigger stage.
Michael says the business’s next chapter means continuing to grow but scaling responsibly.
“We’re at a middle level where to grow to the next spot, we need to double in size,” he explains. “Printavo keeps us organized enough to make those smart moves.”
For other shop owners considering Printavo, he shares a straightforward thought:
“Do it a week ago!”
For more information, visit https://anchorfishprinting.com/.
0 Comments