March 2014
| Business World Magazine | 75
do that because of size, color, style and the
number of designs. My partner, Tina Bacon,
a Ph.D. chemical engineer, said ‘There’s got
to be a way to do this,’ so we started research-
ing.”
The due diligence paid off when Bean
and Co. stumbled upon a new eco-friendly
technology called DTG (direct to garment)
printing, which allowed users to create a dig-
ital image and print it on to a single T-shirt
in a very cost-effective manner. The compa-
ny invested in a printer, began promoting its
new-found capability and soon found a num-
ber of businesses and individuals had been
encountering the same issue – they wanted
personalized T-shirts made, but didn’t need
150 of them.
“We started sending our direct-mail piec-
es to schools and churches and charities and
plumbers and electricians,” Bean says, “and
