In 1995, my wife decided that she hated her day job. The pay was meager, the commute was terrible and, most important, she felt that she could accomplish more with her life. At that time I was a textile machine salesman. I sold serious industrial textile equipment ranging from 3 ton 15 head embroidery machines to smaller single head embroidery machines that you can easily use in her garage. So one day I suggested that he buy a used single head machine and our business was born.

We scoured the neighborhood looking for local businesses, schools, police and fire stations for people who wanted to have their custom logo embroidered on shirts, caps and polo shirts and found it was pretty easy to find businesses. Within a year, the business began to grow steadily and it became apparent that our single head embroidery machine could not keep up with production.

At this point we had to make a strategic decision. Do we invest more money and grow the business? Well we bought a 6 head embroidery machine for $50,000.00 (which barely fit in our garage). Business grew and our new machine was able to keep up quite well. We hired an employee to help run it as well.

I know what you are wondering. How much money did you earn? I can tell you that there were months where we made $9,000.00 a month, but that was working very hard and we started to lose our work-life balance. Then my wife gave birth to two children, and she had to make another strategic decision about how much we wanted to work. I had my own day job and worked with my wife late into the night to help get her orders out the door. Something had to give, so this is what we decided to do.

We fired about 20% of our clients, starting with the clients who demanded 30 and 60 day net terms, and to be honest, we also fired the clients who were too demanding (and a bit abrupt). I’m a nice guy, but I have to admit, I did enjoy firing some of these clients. The end result was that we were still able to earn about $60,000.o0 per year working an average of 4 hour days for some really nice companies who treated us with respect and paid their bills on time.

Fast forward to the present, we sold the 6-head Barudan embroidery machine and purchased a newer, faster 4-head Barudan embroidery machine. We bought it used for around $30,000.00. I know it sounds expensive, but remember we bought the first machine, a single head, for about $8,000.00. If the barriers to entry into this business seem high to you… that’s a good thing. It prevents everyone from entering as well. For example, you can start in the screen printing business for $1,000.00. Look around your neighborhood though, and you’ll soon discover that screen printers outnumber embroidery shops 5 to 1. Secondly, you may also notice that embroidered products are priced much higher than screen printed items.

The decision to stay small so as not to grow too big became a big decision. China crushed the big business of embroidery shops in this country. I mean a business to which I sold machinery that had 10 or more 12-head embroidery machines and had significant production. All of that business was shipped overseas, eventually forcing me to find a new day job (I no longer sell embroidery machines). But the small local shops stayed alive and thrived. Think about it; If you need 50 embroidered caps for your small business or high school team, will you arrange to ship from China, when I can deliver that order in 3 days for the price of $8.00 per cap? By the way, the hats cost me $2 -3.00 a piece and it takes me about an hour to complete the order.

Let’s do the math on that. $5.00 profit per hat x 50 hats = $250.00 gross profit.

If those hats cost $3.00 each, that’s a cost of $50 x $3 = $150 cost of goods.

The net profit is $100.00 for one hour of work. I will work for $100.00 an hour at any time.

So that’s the story of my wife’s work from home. It has been a rewarding career for her that has allowed her to earn money and continue to be a mother. There is another point to make here. Not every work-at-home opportunity has to be an online opportunity. There are still honest businesses still doing something in this country. God bless America and the opportunity to make money in this great country of ours!

That was in 1995, today his business is still going strong (although the recession slowed it down a bit). Best of all, he was able to work at home, earn money, and raise two wonderful children at the same time. If you have questions about getting started in the embroidery business, please leave a comment on this post. I am happy to tell you all about this.

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