VISTA – In the digital age, having the word “printing” as part of your company’s name could be a liability.
“I think the initial conversation started when Will and Henry, my two sons, looked at the name and said, ‘Printing is really an old industry, dad,’” STiCKi CEO Scott Thurman said, referring to his sons who work at the Vista-based company.
CEO
STiCKi
On Aug. 1, the 26-year-old company International Printing Solutions officially was rebranded as STiCKi. Reflecting how STiCKi sees its relationship with clients as a team, the website’s address is now www.teamsticki.com.
More subtle, Thurman said the two lower-case “I” letters are meant to suggest the old saying, “There’s no ‘I’ in ‘Team.’”
Not the First Pivot
With fewer companies in need of printed material in the download era, STiCKi has expanded its services in recent years to provide clients with on-line stores, branding and real-time analytics and reporting.
In an ever-changing landscape, the latest move was not the first time Thurman has seen a need to pivot during his 40-year career.
Beginning in 1984, Thurman worked for 13 years for Irvine-based Newport Printing System as a sales rep in San Diego.
While that company wanted to continue its focus on providing business forms, Thurman saw an opportunity to be a full-service provider to their customers.
“I thought I could do a better job than what they were doing,” he said. “And the writing was on the wall for me. I saw the creative destruction coming.”
He launched International Printing Solutions in Kearny Mesa, and the company soon was taking in a few million dollars annually, he said. The company moved to Vista about seven years ago as its production grew and it needed more space, then moved into an even bigger building in Vista four years ago.
Thurman said the company grew by about 50% annually and peaked for a while at $6 million. Revenue began to grow after the company expanded its technology services, and in 2007 it acquired a company that made notepads businesses use to stick on boxes for identification. STiCKi now is at about $10 million annually.
Thurman said the notepad company had a poor reputation with its client, and he bought it for just $60,000 because the owner wanted a BMW.
Despite the reputation of the previous company, Thurman said he saw the notepads as a valuable product that no one else produced. International Printing Solutions built up clients, including Costco, which grew from about 35 stores as customers to 500.
Being nimble was a necessity for International Printing Solutions as technology changed. At one time, 20% of its business came from multiple-part continuous forms, which many businesses used along with dot matrix machines for invoices and purchase orders.
They still can be found in Dixieline and a few other stores, but otherwise they have all but disappeared.
Becoming STiCKi
Thurman said another “writing on the wall” moment came when an employee went to Best Buy to purchase the latest version of Adobe Illustrator.
It wasn’t at the store, or anywhere else. The software had become available only as a download.
“My thought was, well, if Adobe’s a digital download, every other software company that we work with is not far behind,” Thurman said. “It only makes sense. It’s a better business model.”
Activision, which makes “Call of Duty” and other video games, represented about 10% of International Printing Solutions’ business at the time.
As expected, the games did become downloads, and Thurman went in search of a new client that still needed packaging.
“San Diego happens to be a hotbed for skincare products,” he said. “And so we figured you can’t download skincare products. You always have to pack it up and ship it out.”
The company made a concentrated effort to contact skincare product companies and their customers, shifting their focus to the front-end. Sales reps for International Printing Solutions contacted customers and took orders. Products were sent to Vista then shipped to customers, and the company provided reports to their client’s marketing people.
The service is an example of several company innovations that lead to its rebranding as STiCKi.
The company can help a client make a traditional graphic wall display of products, but also helps with branding and inventory management through its technology.
As an example, a client may send STiCKi a file with 100 different part numbers at various locations and their demand over the next six months, and STiCKi can help them meet the need in that time, Thurman explained.
“With the pivots that we have made, we’ve been lucky to kind of read the tea leaves,” he said about staying competitive in changing times.
StiCKi
FOUNDED: 1998
CEO: Scott Thurman
HEADQUARTERS: Vista
BUSINESS: Manufacturer and distributor of print, package and downloaded products.
REVENUE: $10 million annually.
EMPLOYEES: 20+
WEBSITE: https://teamsticki.com
NOTABLE: The company’s technology helps clients with branding and inventory management, but also still produces traditional continuous forms for dot matrix printers.
