Today we’d like to introduce you to Christina Klemkowski.
Hi Christina, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, you could tell our readers some of your backstory.
After a lifetime of working in restaurants, I hit my breaking point in my late 20s. Extremely overworked and beyond underpaid, one day, I quit my job. I had no prospects or jobs lined up; I just knew I could no longer do the restaurant life. I decided that I would never again work that hard for someone else. I had a bit of savings that could hold me over until I figured out what was next. Over the next few weeks and months, I spent my time helping a friend with a design company. I didn’t have any experience, but it was an unpaid endeavor, and my resourcefulness and techiness came in handy for the company, giving me something productive to do with my time.
Around this time, my massive life change happened. I had grappled with a drinking problem since my late teens. One morning, I woke up to a destroyed apartment. Once again, the events of the previous night were a total blur. It was the one-millionth time this had happened. On that particular day, enough was enough. I took a deep breath and said, ” I am done.” I had always chalked my heavy drinking and partying up to “I was young, and this is what I’m supposed to do.” Over the years, however, my friends and other people my age didn’t tend to wake up in jail cells, gutters, or overturned cars. I never seemed to get my life going anywhere. On that particular day, it hit me like a ton of bricks that I was an alcoholic and had no control over an inanimate object called booze. This doesn’t sound very good, but I am getting to the good part. I decided on that day that I was too intelligent to be a drunk for the rest of my life. “If I drink, bad things happen. I no longer want bad things to happen, so I cannot drink. If I drink, I will die.” That was my mantra every day. I didn’t know what was happening tomorrow or next week; I just knew that I wasn’t drinking that day and I would face everyone after with the same intention. I knew deep down that this was the beginning of my life.
Since I was no longer spending time in bars and didn’t have a job, I needed to find something to occupy my time and mind. For some reason, I was urged to learn how to make stencils. YouTube is an amazing place, and before I knew it, I spent long hours with thick paper, exacto knives, and cans of spray paint. The stenciling process was very soothing to me and kept my mind at ease. I would work on projects, and 10 hours had flown by before I knew it. I would take photos of objects and people I liked, convert them digitally to high-contrast black-and-white images, and then start cutting. It began with rubber ducks and palm trees and evolved into more complicated multiple-color images. I would spray paint these stencils onto canvases and posters. Soon, friends and family asked if I could make stencils of them or their kids and put them onto t-shirts. I was happy to oblige and stoked that I could make $25 off of each item. (LOL, most of the time, I would spend 6 hours at least to prepare, cut, and spray paint an image once and throw the stencil away. As more and more requests came in, I wondered if there was a high-volume way to do this. Could there be a less precise and more permanent solution for the stencil? I started to do some research, and screen printing entered my life.
By this time, a few months had passed, I was still sober, feeling great, and had the energy to create something amazing. I had about 200 dollars left to my name and used all of it to buy wood and hinges from the hardware store to build my first press. I wasn’t worried about money and knew it would all work out. I spent day and night learning the ins and outs of screen printing via YouTube and other websites. At the time, my boyfriend was attending school in South Florida (I was in St. Augustine). He called one day to say that their screen printing course was ending indefinitely, all of the textbooks were 95% off, and he should have bought some for me. I said, “Yes! All of them.” I received the textbooks and started studying. A few days later, something wretched happened to my shoulder. It may be the long hours I spent hunched over my kitchen table cutting stencils. I was in tremendous pain and could do nothing at all. I spent the next two weeks confined to my bed, letting my shoulder heal, and began reading the textbooks. I finished them and read them again and again and again.
My shoulder was healed in a few weeks, and I was on the move again. I had all the supplies and the wooden press I had built. I replaced my bathroom lightbulb with a bug light and officially had a dark room. I was printing and learning and printing. I soon realized I needed to clean my screens to add new images. I didn’t have a washout booth or pressure washer, so I would take my dirty screens to the quarter car wash and hope no one would ask what I was doing. It was great, and I loved my life. I had not a penny to my name, but it was the happiest and healthiest I had been in a long time. I didn’t tell the world what I was doing, but close friends and family knew. They began throwing me bones and ordering printed t-shirts from me. I had a revelation that this would be my livelihood. “I think I can make this a business.” I ran with it. I began telling everyone I knew, and orders started trickling in. I barely made any money, but I was sober and free from working for anyone else. It was amazing. I kept telling myself, “If I can sell 1 t-shirt, I can sell 5; if I can sell 5, I can sell 10; if I can sell 10, I can sell 10,000.
I soon outgrew my spare bedroom screen printing shop and needed something industrial and a real press. My parents, thrilled to see their daughter back, offered to loan me $5,000 to buy real equipment and find a commercial space for my fresh business. I jumped at their offer, and my true screen printing career began. At the same time, I was trying to think of a name. I needed to present myself as a larger company to acquire clients. I was sure I wouldn’t be able to grow my endeavor if everyone knew I was just one woman printing by hand in a garage. Through a twist of fate and an autocorrected text message, Yell Yes was born. In response to a question from someone one day, I saw “Yell Yes” in my text message instead of “hell yes,” and I knew that was it. It meant so much to me for my life at that time. It was a call to action! Go for it, try new things, don’t say no! I was doing it and Yelling Yes every step of the way. I had a purpose again and a job to go to every day. I spent months trying new print methods and fulfilling orders. I had found a local niche with small orders that most big shops wouldn’t touch. I loved it, and it loved me back. I was putting good energy into the universe for the first time in years, and it was giving it back to me. Orders became steady, and I was now in the realm of being an entrepreneur. I was basking in all of it. The wins and the absolute total disasters (there were so many).
Yell Yes continued to grow as the years went on, and I made some amazing relationships. I interacted with many local business owners, coaches, creatives, and some downright pains in the ass. Yell Yes required many long days and late nights on press. There were times that I stood there for 20 hours straight, pulling the squeegee. My work ethic, instilled in me by my parents and working the many positions in their restaurant, allowed me to compete with larger shops with automatic presses and the fanciest equipment money could buy. I just worked and kept going. Juggling the many tasks of running a screen printing business kept my mind engaged, and every year sober was another year Yell Yes excelled. About 8 years in, another life-changing event I have happened. My 15-year relationship went up in flames. Everything I had known for more than a decade had suddenly ended. It was the shake-up I needed. For a few years before the breakup, I had entered my comfort zone and was beginning to grow tired of the day-to-day. The hundreds of thousands of squeegee pulls a week were wearing me out. The breakup was the catalyst needed to sprint to the next level.
For years, I had dreamed of owning an automatic press. I only thought about how much it would grow my business once a friend asked how many shirts I had printed that year. Doing quick rough numbers in my head, I touted 15,000. On a personal level, I was stoked because there were a lot of shirts to print with these two arms. She then asked how long it would take to print that number of shirts with an automatic press. I instantly replied 2 weeks. We both were jaw-dropped. I had never thought of it like that before. It was clear as day for years that I needed an auto, but the cost of something like that was a tremendous pill to swallow, and I could never take the leap until the breakup. The timing was perfect. My ink supplier came to drop off an order of supplies one day and mentioned that it was time to buy an auto. Prices would rise exponentially, and I should invest as soon as possible. Within a few weeks of my ex leaving for good, I secured financing and bought an automatic press. The press would arrive about 5 months ago, giving me some time to find a bigger shop that would fit the new equipment.
After the breakup, I worked day and night to keep up with orders. My ex was my only help in the shop, and he was gone. Within a month of his leaving, I bought an automatic press. Within two months, I hired two employees. Within three months, I ordered an embroidery machine and tripled, almost quadrupling my sales. Within 4 months, I found a shop double the size I was in, and within 5 months, Yell Yes 2.0 was alive. I had a lease for the new shop but was still running production in the small shop until the auto arrived. I would print orders by day and paint the new shop at night. I was slowly moving nonessential items to the new place in between. In March of 2022, Yell Yes 2.0 was completed. The auto was up and running, and I had taught myself embroidery throughout January, historically the slowest time of year; we were rolling. I could now quote potential orders for 5,000 + shirts and was hungry to do so, and I did.
I have been in the new shop with the auto for a little over a year. I’ve made every mistake in the book and experienced tremendous growing pains, but I never gave up, and one year later, everything is moving smoothly. Well, of course, there is a shirt that catches on fire now and then, but those are the days that make it awesome! The anniversary of receiving the automatic press ironically fell on the 10th anniversary of my not drinking. Yup, I made it to a decade sober. It was a surreal day. I am truly grateful for everything in my life, large and small. Even the mess-ups in the shop that have left scars so deep I would never forget them. We now have a steady group of repeat customers, including many local St. Augustine businesses, a few retail brands, sports clubs, and youth athletic leagues, to name a few. Every day is exciting, challenging, sometimes exhausting, but always incredible. Yell Yes is my life, and my life keeps getting better. I can’t wait to see where the next decade takes me. I found a note I had written recently around the time I got sober. I don’t remember writing it, but I remember my mindset at the time. It is the mental attitude that invigorates me daily.
Random Person: Tell me your story.
Me: I have a lot of them. The only one that doesn’t end disastrously is the one I’m writing now.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has been a challenging road. Every failure has been a learning lesson, and I have grown from every single one of them. Small business is tough juggling a million tasks, and trying to remain sane is a precarious balance. I have to be the printer, the accountant, the quoter and invoicer, the customer service rep, the receptionist, the shipper, the screen cleaner, and 9,000 other jobs that this business requires. Screen Printing is hard. There are so many variables; if one is incorrect, the whole job is shot, and you have to start over. I watched dozens of YouTube tutorials and thought, ok, that seems pretty simple, and then you realize it isn’t. Finding employees and help has been challenging. This is manual labor; it’s hot, messy, and only for some. I must be nuts because I love it. There is no guarantee that the phone will ring or orders will come in. Being able to adapt and survive the slow times is what makes the busy times all the better. I experienced major growing pains after upgrading to the automatic press. It requires an entirely different business model than the manual shop. There are numbers we need to hit, and figuring out how to efficiently schedule production and labor was quite the learning curve.
I appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Yell Yes Screen Printing?
Yell Yes is a custom screen print shop in St. Augustine, Florida. We focus on high-quality prints on premium garments. We use eco-friendly print methods such as water-based ink and organic garments. We can do special effects such as metallic foil, 3D puff, and water-based discharge (a process that re-dyes the color of the garment so you are left with no feel on the print; it becomes a part of the t-shirt fibers). We are most proud of the happy customers that keep coming back. We don’t advertise; our growth has been strictly through word of mouth and referrals. Our customer service and ability to walk companies through creating their brand is what we are good at. We can take an “idea” and turn it into a physical product you can see, feel, and wear. We want you to “Ditch your lame gear, undress, and Yell Yes.”
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
We want you to Yell Yes. We want to be your “favorite t-shirt” company. Yell Yes is a woman-owned business that can produce orders large and small.
Contact Info:
- Website: yellyes.com
- Instagram: https://wwwinstagram.com/yellyes_screenprinting
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yellyes
