Business Spotlight: Sew Local

Sandy Higgins loves the art of the craft, and she’s not afraid to get dirty. Those traits blended into a screen-printing business approaching $1 million in sales this year.

The Crackerjack Shack LLC spills ink into careful patterns for T-shirt designs, and the staff is building on a budding embroidery segment.

Owner Higgins started as a cottage industry business, embroidering high-end children’s clothing from her spare bedroom and basement in Ash Grove. Her one-of-a-kind designs caught on with girls’ pageant contestants. Other moms would sometimes help, but Higgins knew it wasn’t sustainable.

“I realized I couldn’t duplicate myself. The business grew as far as it could,” she says.

An epiphany came in 2007 at a trade show in Kansas City, when someone asked her about logo wear. Higgins came home and wrote down every business name she could think of in Springfield. She had a plan.

To test the waters, Higgins bought a bunch of cheap towels and embroidered company logos on them to pass out to each business.

“Once they saw their name in stitches, it was gold. I sold out,” she says. “Then I knew I had something.”

For a few years, Crackerjack Shack ran production in a commercial facility in Ash Grove.

“We landed a few big accounts,” she says, pointing to Meek’s lumber and hardware in Springfield and Cott Corp. beverages in Joplin. “I had no idea about the competition then.”

Big problems
In fall 2014, Higgins unloaded on her business mentor, John McKearney of small-business resource Score.

She was navigating the crowded screen-printing market but had three problems: The business in Ash Grove was maxed out on space, bandwidth and electricity capacities.

McKearney told her to open a Springfield store, automate production and find a new production facility. She didn’t waste any time.

By January, Higgins opened a store on West Sunshine Street and last summer secured nearly $50,000 in equipment and signed a lease to run production in Republic.

“She was just straining with growth opportunities,” McKearney says. “Her marketing plans and her implementation was producing results that her physical plant couldn’t support. It was the enviable position that most people would like to be in.”

Higgins found a used automatic press for $27,000 in Jackson, Miss., and a gas dryer for $20,000 in San Francisco. The press can churn out 1,000 shirts an hour, up from 200 on the old equipment.

With nicknames common in the company – office beancounter Dawn Mulberry is known as Roz from “Monster’s Inc.” – Higgins affectionately calls the press Jackson and the dryer Fran.

“They become your good friend or worst enemy depending on their temperament that day,” she says.

Also, the Crackerjack name is derived from a nickname for Higgins’ daughter.

In October, the company set up shop in Republic.

“We are still settling in. I think it takes a year or two,” Higgins says.

The moves also caused the company to take out its first loan.

“We really like that feeling of not having someone nipping at our heels every 30 days,” Higgins says.

Score mentor McKearney says they talked at length about a loan.

“They wanted to pay as you go. But at some point, it gets beyond your ability to do it out of pocket,” he says.

As her husband Matt says: “It may not be right, but it’s right for us.”

He works as a construction supply salesman. Crackerjack Shack is all Sandy’s, and she’s among only 16 percent of female owners to sustain a business six-10 years, according to The Story Exchange, a multiyear project to document 1,000 experiences of women entrepreneurs worldwide.

Crafty with clients
Having started as a crafter, Higgins still places high value on art and hires accordingly.

Graphic artist Jesse Nickles joined Crackerjack Shack a year ago after working five years with now-defunct Black Lantern Studios on projects for Nick Jr. and Disney.

“I remember what he said in the interview: ‘If I have to draw Dora the Explorer one more time … ,’” she says, laughing, then quickly transitioning to complements of Nickles’ hand-drawn sketches. “The art is the heart and soul of this business. Anybody can grab clip art and slap it on a shirt.”

In the showroom, there’s a wall of T-shirt designs for Titanic museum, Mayhem Marzen and Earth Day. About 85 percent of business is retail and 15 percent is wholesale, where clients resell the garments after Crackerjack Shack applies the decorations. Crackerjack Shack recorded $870,000 in 2015 revenue.

Until two years ago, Higgins says she knew of every client. Today, she just estimates there are a couple thousand accounts, then rattles off Lucas Oil Speedway, Springfield Public Schools and Gold Mountain Communications.

The change is refreshing to Higgins because she can get back to functioning as an entrepreneur. Her role is as visionary: “What’s the next curve? What’s the next hill for the business?”

Higgins has eyes on a Joplin store.

“That’s probably going to be the very next thing,” she says.