BusinessProfile
The saying goes, It’s not what you do,
but how you do it. In the case of Entripy
Custom Clothing, the maxim couldn’t be
more fitting.
In our industry, decorating apparel is
nothing new. In fact, there are literally
tens of thousands of companies across
the country that perform screen print-
ing and embroidery services, some with
more success than others. What makes
this Oakville, Ontario-based company so
unique is, well, pretty much everything.
From its technological approach and
streamlined efficiency, to its paperless
philosophy, to its youthful founder’s per-
spective on management and marketing
- it becomes immediately evident that this
is not your everyday garment decorator.
From Humble
Beginnings
Back in early 1999, Jas Brar was a stu-
dent at University of Toronto. Having ori-
ginally enrolled in Commerce, Brar quick-
ly became frustrated with the abundance
of theory which dominated this field of
study and switched his focus to Urban
Planning and Geography - an area that
required practical application and a more
hands-on approach. It was during this
time that Brar founded Entripy Custom
Clothing; he began buying T-shirts at
wholesale, embellishing them through a
third-party and selling them back to resi-
dences and fellow students on campus.
“I realized that we couldn’t get anything
done on time, so I bought a manual press
and we started doing our own screen
printing out of my parent’s basement,”
recalls Brar, “and from there, we just kept
growing.” It wasn’t long before Entripy
Custom Clothing expanded to incor-
porate two automatic presses and added
embroidery and digitizing services for
its client base which was growing just as
quickly.
Today, Entripy Custom Clothing
employs a young, tech-savvy team of
25 and produces everything in-house
from its state-of-the-art 16,000 square
foot facility that is impeccably divided
into sales, art and management depart-
ments - in addition to two independent
and fully-automated production areas for
embroidery and printing, both of which
are spotless to the point where you could
conceivably eat off the floor.
“Our biggest advantage is we get orders
out on time and we don’t miss deadlines,”
says Brar, explaining that Entripy boasts
a 99.6% on-time guarantee which is one
of several quantitative measures fuel-
ing the company’s rapid growth. Entripy
operates with a seven business day stan-
dard service, and the 24-hour rush ser-
vice it provides has become very popu-
lar among clients and has helped spur a
referral business that accounts for more
28 Imprint Canada | July/August 2010
Entripy Custom Clothing Founder Jas Brar
than 50% of total sales (another quantita-
tive measure the company sticks to).
“Today for example, we’ve got three
same day orders that need to go out by 4
p.m., and we are one of the few guys that
can consistently pull that off,” says Brar.
He recalls a rush order they did not long
ago for Tiesto, a globally renowned DJ
who was in town performing. At noon
one Saturday, they had called and spoke
with one of Entripy’s sales reps who was
in that day and explained that at the con-
cert in Montreal the night before they
had sold all of their merchandise and
were left with nothing for that evening’s
event. After asking around, they heard
about Entripy’s rush service and called
to ask if the company could help them
out on such short notice. Entripy did just
that; they were able to pull stock from
another order, their production staff
came in, and the job was printed and
out the door at 6 p.m. “And that’s on a
Saturday!,” says Brar, “This is word that
gets out about us.”
Investing in the
Future
When asked what aspect of the busi-
ness is focused on most, without hesi-
tation Brar says technology. One of the
reasons that Entripy is able to react so
quickly to its clients’ needs - as was the
case with the Tiesto order - is that the
entire team is connected at all times and
equipped with PDAs so as to always be on
call when needed.
Having consistently reinvested profits
into research and development, every
aspect of Entripy’s workflow system -
from quoting to CRM - is custom-built
by their in-house computer programmer
and designed to streamline workflow.
“We are the type of business that builds
infrastructure first and then grows into
it, as opposed to growing out of an old
system and being forced into something
new,” says the 29-year old Brar, who cred-
its his education in urban planning for
helping develop this strategic approach
of laying the foundation first and then
growing into it.
A good example of this strategic mind-
set can be seen in Entripy’s management
team; the company has gone to great
lengths and invested significant resour-
ces in securing a top-tier upper man-
agement group that is qualified to run
The Entripy team together with the Ontario Minister of Revenue, John Wilkinson and
local MPP, Kevin Flynn who toured the facility during the taping of their HST video
a company that is four-to-five times the
size of Entripy’s current scope - so as the
company continues to grow, the founda-
tion is already in place. Further to that,
the sales and support teams are equally
astute and very engaged in day-to day
activities. Each member is given a lot
of responsibility, and with the constant
growth and change that Entripy enjoys,
there are always empowering challenges
employees need to take ownership of.
Social Media Marketing is another
area in which Entripy is among industry
leaders, due in large part to its continual
investment. Having pumped resources
into SMM for several years, Brar explains
that only now is the company starting
to experience a return on all the time,
money and effort put into it.
“Social Media is not something that
you do once. You need to hit it from all
angles and you need to constantly be
fresh, consistent and innovative,” says
Brar, whose wife Shelli is Entripy’s in-
house resident expert on Social Media,
communications and community rela-
tions.
In addition to a strong social presence
on Facebook and Twitter, EntripyTV
is a creative collection of videos found
on the company’s website (and on
YouTube) which are comprised of an
array of informative clips targeted to
its ever-growing client base. From HST
testimonials during a visit from the
Ontario Minister of Finance, to the
company’s unique guerilla marketing
stunt performed in downtown Toronto,
EntripyTV is a place where existing and
potential clients can engage with the
brand and get a feel for the unique cul-
ture that embodies the company.
Awarding Excellence
All of this hard work has really started
to pay off for Entripy with acclaimed rec-
ognition coming in the form of presti-
gious awards and national media expos-
ure. In 2008, Jas Brar was bestowed
with Ernst&Young’s esteemed Young
Entrepreneur of the Year award, and in
that same year Entripy Custom Clothing
was ranked in PROFIT 100’s list of
Canada’s fastest growing companies
(they made the list again in 2009).
More recently, CTV News aired a
national news story which highlighted
how successful the company navigated
the recession which plagued our indus-
try and global economies on the whole.
The widespread, mainstream recogni-
tion that Entripy Custom Clothing has
received serves to reinforce the notion
that it’s not what you, but how you do it
that matters. Having built the business
on the customization of clothing, Brar
explained that he has adapted to his cli-
ents’ growing demand for promotional
media through the launch of Entripy
Promotional Marketing (EPM) earlier
this year. The new division operates with a
strategic focus on penetrating the current
market share of promotional products by
providing diverse branding solutions for
its client base.
With more than 10 years in this indus-
try, Brar has also been privy to numer-
ous changes in our marketplace, some
good and some bad. The good comes in
the form of industry growth; more com-
panies are investing in the value of brand
recognition via promotional media which
has helped boost the scope and import-
ance of our industry.
Brar has also witnessed many compan-
ies in our industry come and go - some-
thing he attributes mainly to the lack of
barriers of entry into this market. “I’m
not about keeping people out because I
believe competition is great, but when
you have someone new enter this industry
who is not knowledgeable (about prod-
ucts, techniques and timelines), it leads
to confusion, chaos and disappointment.
It’s unfortunate for our industry to get a
bad rap because of this,” he says.
One of the more telling trends that
Brar has seen emerging is more contract
decorators trying to sell directly to the
end-user - a challenge which he can tell
you first-hand is far more difficult than
most decorators may perceive. “Selling
direct is a completely different animal
than contract printing because end-users
require a lot more time and attention to
detail. We know this because this is how
we started our business.”
By continuing to sell directly to cus-
tomers via meticulous in-house produc-
tion, Entripy has maintained its near-
flawless track record while cementing a
rock-solid reputation among clients and
industry peers. With a client base of more
than 7,000 active clients (many of which
are small businesses), and a year-over-
year growth rate of over 25 per cent (and
over 1300 per cent since inception), there
seem to be no limits for Entripy Custom
Clothing in their quest for becoming one
of the largest, most efficient decorators in
our industry.