 |
Cell phone retailer seeks to fill a niche
You and Your Money: Financial planners offer
tips for avoiding identity theft
Newberg Area Business Directory
|
A screenprinter called Swissters Coffee |
By Gunnar Olson, Newberg
Graphic reporter
E-mail Gunnar at golson@eaglenewspapers.com
|
What is now the groundwork for a chain of
coffee shops started as a joke.
Chatting over cups of coffee at a Dutch Brothers outlet, C.S. Lewis
Academy students Nate Travers and Gabe Scully dreamt up the name of
a competing coffee chain – Swiss Sisters. That was fall 2003.
A year later they’ve come a long way toward turning that joke into
a real business. They haven’t served their first cup of joe yet, but
they have opened business, a Newberg-based sreenprinting business
called Swissters Coffee Company. They see the venture as their
ticket to bigger ventures – a high-profit, well-run business they
can show investors.
“So they can see that as businessmen we can offer that,” said
Travers, 19, now a sophomore at Portland Community College. He spoke
Monday from the company’s one-room operation in a pole building west
of Dundee. He was joined by his two partners; they met at the
private Christian high school in Newberg.
“It shows we can make money,” said Noah Hagglund, 18 and a senior
at C.S. Lewis. He’s the money man, the one with a job – he’s a
part-time carpenter working for his uncle. (He’s also the one whose
grandfather offered them the use of his barn.) Travers and Scully
comprise the knowledge department.
“This is their baby,” Hagglund said. “I just help them out because
I see a lot of potential in these two.”
Scully, 16 and a junior at C.S. Lewis, did most the talking as he
and Travers demonstrated the company’s new four-color, four-head
screenprinting machine. The story he shared was one of
joke-turned-serious.
“Swiss Sisters” was condensed to “Swissters.” Then they paid to
have the logo of their factitious company put on T-shirts.
“Before we knew it people were approaching us about doing their
clothes,” Scully said.
Scully said their friends were attracted to the idea that the
coffee company their T-shirts were sporting wasn’t real. Scully
compared the concept to the Abercrombie and Fitch T-shirts that
purport to be the shirts of fake football and volleyball teams.
Next the principal at C.S. Lewis asked if they could design shirts
for incoming freshman. They mimicked the G.I. Joe’s logo. They
decided that this time they would make the shirts themselves with a
screenprinting kit.
They’ve been open for business since Nov. 1.
Hagglund said that while they’re not in competition with
Newberg’s other screenprinting business, Dormer’s Screenprinting,
they are in the same market, and often pick up the leftovers. That
doesn’t mean they aren’t seeking larger orders, Travers said, adding
the company is currently processing a 300-shirt order and is capable
of handling larger orders.
Swissters specializes in sweatshirts, T-shirts and other articles
of clothing, but also prints on hats and stickers.
Swissters’ strategy for success is to offer the cheapest price and
the fastest turnaround. If customers don’t have their order in four
business days, the company offers a 10 percent discount on the
purchase.
For more information call Travers at 503-550-1742. |
|
From
Dec. 1, 2004,
Newberg Graphic
Click Here to Subscribe |
|
SPONSORS: |
|
| |
|
 |
|
 |
|
