Company Stats:

• Revenue: $5 million
• Employees: ~30
• Founded: 2015

Podcast Highlights:

✅ Ink’d Stores scales by shifting from a local retail swag shop to building on-demand company stores that manage and fulfill employee merch with no upfront cost.

✅ Jay emphasizes that action beats ideas. Cold calling, local events, and relentless experimentation are how you take a business from zero to one.

✅ The company wins in a $28B promotional products industry by focusing on corporate clients, service, and niche execution, not by trying to be “the Amazon of swag.”

Episode Summary:

In this episode, Jay Sapovits, President of Ink’d Stores, walks through the journey of pivoting from a fitness business into a thriving promotional products company. He explains how the company started as a physical retail swag shop and evolved into a B2B provider specializing in on-demand company stores for corporate clients. Operating in the $28 billion promotional products industry, Ink’d now generates around $5 million in revenue with just under 30 employees and celebrates its 10-year anniversary.

Jay dives into why reaching $1 million in revenue is statistically rare only about 1% of U.S. businesses ever hit that milestone—and why entrepreneurs shouldn’t get distracted by unicorn headlines. Instead, he focuses on consistent, gritty execution: chamber networking, cold calling, knocking on doors, and even standing outside in a penguin costume to get attention in the early days. He shares how mugs, classic branded merch staples, still rank among the top gifts thanks to their low cost and high perceived value, and compares the industry to pizza: tons of local players can thrive simultaneously because demand is so broad.

The conversation also covers Ink’d’s major pivot from a walk-in retail model to hosting internal company swag stores that employees can order from on demand. Jay talks about “zero to one” mindset, surrounding yourself with strong people, and letting go of control so the business can scale. His main message to new founders: take shots constantly, analyze what happens, refine, and keep shooting—because every “no” gets you closer to a “yes,” and momentum only comes from action.

Chapters

00:00 Intro

00:14 Company Stats

01:23 Target Market and Industry Insights

04:15 Challenges and Successes: The First Million

07:15 Strategies for Startups: Taking Action

10:39 The Big Pivot: Adapting During COVID

11:44 Connect With Ink'd

‍

#promotionalproducts #brandedmerchandise #corporateswag #smallbusiness #entrepreneurship #businessgrowth #marketingstrategy #ecommerce #onlinestore #businesstips

‍