MyPrint Corp. -- Keeps on Growing

EXPLOSIVE is how the executives at Irvine, CA-based MyPrint Corp. would describe the growth their company has experienced in the past three years. MyPrint operates on a simple mantra: “Focus on the things that make our customers very successful and do them exceedingly well.” The printer has doubled its revenues over the past three years by meeting clients’ brand needs—launching enhanced versions of Web-to-print capabilities and investing heavily in new equipment. “If we can bring tools to our customers that help them do their job very well and, at the same time, generate a substantial amount of work for us, the partnership is a win-win proposition,” notes Kent Barkouras, president of MyPrint.

Online Success

MyPrint’s success in recent years can be largely attributed to the growing demand for its online ordering applications, which the company launched and branded as “etools” in 2003. Tailored specifically for clients in the healthcare, travel, fitness and restaurant industries, etools allow organizations anywhere in the world to easily manage and order branded sales and marketing materials cost-effectively through a Web-based portal.

“The decision to implement etools gave us a five-year head start on our competitors,” explains Craig Hath, executive vice president of sales. “It has sparked the tremendous growth that we’ve seen in recent years.” In 2007 alone, etools helped fuel the company’s annual revenues to increase by more than 400 percent to $30+ million.

MyPrint has developed two releases of etools, 2.0 and 3.0, as well as etoolsproducts (www.etoolsproducts.com), which was launched this past April. etoolsproducts have strengthened the company’s already growing niche in the restaurant industry by providing some of the largest family chain restaurants in North America a one-stop shop to help manage their brands. Applications include menu management, local store marketing, point-of-purchase promotion, training, HR and operations. Just last year, the company added 10 national restaurant brands as customers.

In conjunction with its online offerings, MyPrint offers commercial offset and specialty printing, direct mail services, on-demand digital capabilities, distribution, inventory management, and kitting and fulfillment. The company serves a national customer base in several vertical markets, including restaurants, healthcare, distribution, travel, fitness, pharmaceutical, entertainment and hospitality, financial services, educational, retail goods and services, manufacturing and technology.

It now produces at least 90 percent of its clients’ printed materials in-house, including restaurant menus, marketing collateral, posters, flyers, directories and enrollment kits.

Founded in 1982, MyPrint—then known as Phoenix Press—was a small commercial printer that specialized in small- to mid-sized sheetfed requirements. In 2002, the company began the transition from a job shop to an account-based, program management firm seeking to offer a greater range of services to key markets. MyPrint’s sales doubled over a six-year period.

The 125-employee operation has also invested heavily in new equipment. Last year, it installed a two-color Heidelberg Printmaster QM 46 press and a Stahlfolder B30 folder to help meet the demand for online orders.

“We made those investments because we saw a dramatic increase in smaller orders coming from five new national customers that utilize our customization capabilities through etools,” Hath notes. “Those job requirements included take-out menus, flyers and small-run brochures that often required folding.”

The addition of the Printmaster has also played a significant role in the company’s short-run production of business cards and station- ery. The Stahlfolder B30 folder was also critical to the company’s ability to be competitive both from a cost and turnaround standpoint with items like sales collateral and brochures.

Last year, MyPrint also installed a six-color, 22? Didde web press to produce economical, consumable-type items for its customers such as comic/coloring books, newsletters and placemats/tray liners. The company also doubled its stationery production capability to meet the needs of several high-volume requirements.

Dynamic Expansion

Its offset pressroom currently consists of a two-color, 40? Heidelberg Speedmaster SM 102 perfector; a Heidelberg Quickmaster 46-2 with envelope feeder; a five-color, 28? Komori Lithrone; and a six-color, 40? Mitsubishi with coater.

Up until last year, MyPrint operated its manufacturing and fulfillment out of one location. The company decided to invest in a separate, 50,000-square-foot facility to house its fulfillment operation. “We wanted to expand our footprint to meet existing customers’ requirements and our dynamic growth plan,” explains Barkouras.

Since opening its new fulfillment facility, MyPrint has doubled the amount of individual product SKUs it manages to more than 10,000. The company now has the additional capacity to expand service levels to several new and existing large client relationships. In addition, the new location has also improved the company’s ability to manage complex kitting and fulfillment requirements.

MyPrint is on track to post $40 million in sales for 2008, and plans to grow to a $100 million company within the next three years. Moving forward, the company plans to narrow its focus on the restaurant and hospitality markets and will maintain a leadership position with its major healthcare clients, while also investing in additional wellness-based industries. MyPrint hopes to grow its existing clients’ revenue base by 100 percent by providing them with new tools to make them more successful, such as launching a new release of etools in the first quarter of 2009.

“We plan to tailor etools functionality even more to meet our customers’ exact brand needs. This will allow them to do things with their brand that were previously impossible,” concludes Barkouras. “After all, some of our clients spend hundreds of millions of dollars on their brand. So, we want to help them get their money’s worth.” PI