Starting a Business with Crio: A One Stop Solution

From the World of IT to Operating a Custom Decoration Business

Starting a custom garment and goods business wasn’t always the plan for Steve Rushin, but he had to pivot careers when his life drastically changed after being hit by a drunk driver one evening when riding his motorcycle home from work.

Before owning his own decoration business called Customary Thing (a play on the term “custom everything”), Steve was a systems engineer for 20 years at a law firm in downtown Atlanta and sold merchandise part-time on Amazon. Following the accident, Steve was ultimately left needing to use a wheelchair to get around and needed to find another way to continue to work and contribute to his family.

New Start in a New Industry

Initially, after the accident, Steve was confined to a hospital bed and decided to teach himself a new skill. He began learning Photoshop to create basic t-shirt designs. With his previous knowledge of selling on Amazon and his newfound skills in Photoshop, his interest grew, and he began to investigate technology and equipment to decorate his own apparel to sell.

Garment Decoration Technology Research

Years ago, he began considering starting a business and initially was set on a direct-to-garment print to make shirts, but he never pulled the trigger. In the fourth quarter of 2020, he began his research into garment decoration technologies once more to be sure that he was making the best investment into equipment for his business.

Upon doing his due diligence, he learned about white toner technology. When he heard about all the possibilities with white toner, other than shirts, he was interested. He learned you can make a variety of apparel items with any fabric type, hard goods, and traditional print shop options.

He considered white toner technology a “no-brainer” but wanted to be sure it was the right fit for him. By creating a list of pros and cons of different technologies, he believes that the Crio white toner printer with OKI technology would give him the most bang for his buck. He figured he could stick with his choice of DTG and do t-shirts or purchase the Crio and do it all.

Why Choose a Crio White Toner Printer?

In his experience as a systems engineer, he supported OKI printers as a new tech at an international law firm. The printers were known to be high quality and reliable. Though he is new to decorating, his experience with OKI decades ago made him comfortable with choosing Crio, powered by OKI technology. He was confident he had found a decoration solution that would be consistent, reliable and provide excellent customer experiences.

Investing in a Crio 9541WDT

Steve purchased a Crio 9541WDT in October of 2021 from ColDesi and the DigitalHeat FX line of solutions. When asked why he chose to go with the Crio 9541WDT, Steve said even though he had never seen a demo or had an in-person experience with the model, that he chose it due to the largest print size available. He said it appeared to be the flagship, no-compromises model and he wanted the best of the best.

Wanting the best white toner printer available on the market, Steve chose to invest in the Crio 9541WDT due to the 5-color (CMYK+W) system with true black for the richest colors and the largest print area (13”x19”).

Steve chose a Crio also because Crio is the direct OEM for OKI in the Americas. He knew that iColor printers were typically converted OKI or Ricoh printers and he didn’t want to have a problem with support by having a “middleman” between him and the manufacturer.