Paintball Passion Inspires Sublimation Business

Mondo and Rosey Garcia's desire for custom paintball team uniforms evolved into a successful sublimation business with clients in many niche sports.
Jan 1, 2009

Here's most of the Animal Paintball crew outside the company's Laredo, Texas shop.

By Dawn McMullan, Contributing Writer

People in paintball aren't subtle. And they don't follow the crowd. Which is why the combination of Animal Paintball's affordable custom design and the choice of sublimation printing was a natural. While competing at a paintball tournament 10 years ago, Armondo ("Mondo") and Rosey Garcia realized that their team's cool jerseys looked like every other team's cool jerseys.

Not so cool.

With money they were saving to buy their first house, the couple opened Animal Paintball (animalpaintball.com). Both are CEOs of the Laredo, Texas-based company — Mondo managing sales, advertising, marketing, complaints and "direction of the company," while Rosey handles human resources, graphic design and sublimation production.

Animal Paintball has grown from the Garcias' and a few part-timers to 20-plus full-time employees, including the Garcias' parents, who help with bookkeeping and shipping. And a new generation may one day join the business — at presstime, Rosey was due to deliver the couple's first child.

Here's an inside look at how it all comes together:

IMPRESSIONS: You obviously started with an emphasis on paintball. How did you get into printing for BMX, professional fishing, rodeo, soccer, hockey, basketball and other markets?

MONDO: We did start off in paintball, but luckily many of our customers had several hobbies outside of paintball. So the paintball customers became happy BMX, bullfighter, basketball, etc., customers. We evolved into the other sports as our happy customers not only used [our products], but spread the word of our products and customer service.

IMPRESSIONS: Your Web site says you will go after the hockey and soccer markets next. What are your plans in that area?

MONDO: To be honest, we really don't actively go after any of our customers. I can't remember the last time we did any advertising. Thankfully, the customers just come our way by the good word of past happy customers.

IMPRESSIONS: Do you have outside sales people, or is it all online sales?

MONDO: Yes, we have literally hundreds of thousands of sales people — all of our customers who get asked, "Hey, where'd you pick up that awesome jersey?" In all seriousness, our sales are 99% online. We rarely deal with locals, as we live in a very small city.

IMPRESSIONS: When did you start Animal?

MONDO: We started this Animal in 1998 while I was working full time for the City of Laredo and my wife worked for a local bank. We initially started it as a part-time thing. Through all the hard work and some luck, it grew into what we have today.

IMPRESSIONS: Tell us about your first attempt at selling jerseys.

MONDO: We started out with 600 jerseys, 200 per design. My mom thought we were going to be wearing them until the day we died, but luckily we sold out in several months.

IMPRESSIONS: How did you find out about sublimation printing?

MONDO: Initially, we would buy 200 of each design and then just customize them with vinyl letters and numbers. One day it just clicked. I realized, why would I want to order hundreds of one design when I could just make them as they were ordered?

IMPRESSIONS: How did you learn the sublimation printing techniques?

MONDO: To be honest, we learned by trial and error. There wasn't as much information as there is today on the subject.

IMPRESSIONS: What was your first production process? Direct-to-garment inkjet printing? Or were you printing sublimation inks onto transfer paper and then heat pressing?

MONDO: We first started off — and still to this day — use sublimation inks on transfer paper and then heat press.

IMPRESSIONS: What kind of unit volume are you doing over a certain period of time — per week/per month/per year?

MONDO: It can change from month to month, but on the average we ship out approximately 100 jerseys a day.

IMPRESSIONS: What sets your product apart from other companies in this market?

MONDO: Other than our attention to detail, we really try to make each individual jersey unique. We have a slew of artists here, and they take their work to heart. They view each and every order as a work of art.

IMPRESSIONS: Are all those artists full-time or do some of them create shirt designs via contract or freelance agreement?

MONDO: We have many full-time designers, but we do have some freelance artists as well.

IMPRESSIONS: Your designs are amazing, and the colors are eye-popping. How would you describe the importance of design and color to your success? How do styles/colors vary from paintball to BMX to fishing?

MONDO: The colors don't really change from style to style as much as the designs do.

IMPRESSIONS: Those shots of the rodeo clown on your Web site are great. Are you developing some significant business in rodeo?

MONDO: We got into the bullfighting business by the way of paintball. It took one paintball player to try bullfighting with our jersey, and then our business just spread like wildfire.

IMPRESSIONS: Where do you source your blank jerseys?

MONDO: We actually do all the cut and sew in our facility, starting with large white rolls of material.

[Editor's note: Animal Paintball and Animal Custom jerseys are all made from moisture-wicking performance polyester, the ideal substrate for sublimation decoration.]

IMPRESSIONS: What about pricing and margin? Is it constant across all the sports, or do you have to adjust in some sports for competitive reasons?

MONDO: Pricing does differ from sport to sport, mainly because of the volume. When we get an order for paintball jerseys, we usually get an order for 10 and up. When we get an order from anglers, they are usually one at a time. Since we are able to spread the set-up costs across the whole paintball team, their unit cost can be lessened.

IMPRESSIONS: Why do you think you and Rosey have had such success?

MONDO: Lots of work, a bit of luck … and did I mention lots of work? As my dad used to say, "Chance favors the prepared." So every chance we get, we are constantly finding new ways to make things more efficient, better looking, faster, etc. We haven't really stopped to take a break in 10 years. We are always on our toes, and when new competition enters the market, we step it up 10 notches to ensure that we're ahead of the curve. As you can tell, I'm very competitive.

IMPRESSIONS: Are you having fun?

MONDO: We are having a blast. We often do things here at the office to keep morale up — like pizza days, artwork contests, taking our employees out on paintball outings, and the occasional clubbing.

We really feel that our employees are family and treat them as such. I have an open-door policy that they can come and talk to me about anything. Some of our best policies and work ideas have come from our employees. I also love the fact that I get to work with my wife, mother and father. It's great that I get to see them on a daily basis. I really could not be happier.

Dawn McMullan is an award-winning freelance writer based in Dallas. She writes for national and regional magazines and provides commentary for Dallas newspapers and radio stations. For more information or to comment on this article, contact Dawn at dmcmullan@sbcglobal.net.

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