Life Is Good founders Bert and John Jacobs
Contained in the cavernous constructing in New Hampshire the place Life Is Good prints and ships 1000’s of T-shirts and different branded attire day-after-day, the Boston firm’s ethos is spelled out in big letters above the manufacturing unit flooring. “The whole lot is figureoutable.”
That mantra has steered the 30-year-old firm by means of turbulent instances, together with the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s saved the optimism of its founders, Bert and John Jacobs, intact as they broaden operations right here.
Enterprise has been regular since Life is Good opened its 500,000-square-foot manufacturing and achievement heart three months in the past in Hudson, the place it has had a presence for greater than 20 years. To maintain up with demand, 12 industrial direct-to-garment printers run 24 hours a day.
Throughout a current tour, a tiny drone buzzed across the new complicated, capturing footage for a advertising and marketing video that was being produced to tout the corporate’s new customized printing division.
Preserve it Easy — which quietly launched in Could however is getting a promotional push this month and its personal web site (keepitsimple.co) — provides customized service to corporations reminiscent of eating places and rock bands that need T-shirts and different attire with their logos printed on them.
As a result of Life Is Good has 1000’s of clean T-shirts saved on-site, the corporate can provide a 48-hour turnaround.
“That guarantees to be a really large enterprise for us,” stated Tom Hassell, the corporate’s president. “There are many individuals who do that, however they have an inclination to have longer lead instances and fairly vital minimal necessities.”
The customized work will assist preserve manufacturing regular all year long. Life Is Good employs about 150 fulltime employees on the plant, however on any given day 50 to 150 non permanent employees be a part of the ranks primarily based on demand. Summer time tends to be the slower interval for the corporate.
“A part of it’s discovering the correct companions, as a result of throughout November and December we’re actually busy,” Hassell stated. “The primary couple of shoppers that we’ve signed up for Preserve it Easy, their demand is in the summertime, which is ideal as a result of then we will hopefully be actually, actually busy throughout the summer time and actually busy throughout the vacation season.”
Bert Jacobs, who like his brother has the title of “chief government optimist,” says the customized work will assist even out staffing on the new plant.
“Our enterprise is regular for 12 months, however it does peak in the summertime and peak at Christmas,” he stated throughout an interview along with his brother over Zoom. “Already we’ve received musicians and bands and many issues leaping on board. I simply got here from a convention, and several other buddies with companies are going to start out printing with us.”
Strikes the corporate made in 2019 to deliver manufacturing to the US to enhance lead instances set the stage for Preserve it Easy.
“They have been between 12 and 15 months from artist desk to a product exhibiting up in a retailer or on our web site,” Hassell stated. “And we realized that on the earth of T-shirts, we had the flexibility to make graphics about what was taking place as we speak, and the one manner we may do this was to deliver the printing on-shore.”
Life Is Good clean T-shirts are manufactured in Peru, however its screen-printing work is now finished within the U.S.
“We purchased our first printer in 2019. It took us a couple of yr to get good at it, as a result of there’s really loads of analysis and improvement related to printing on any new colour or cloth, and we have to guarantee that you could wash a product 15 instances and have it nonetheless look nice,” Hassell stated.
The moved proved fortuitous when COVID-19 hit in March 2020, and retail shops shut down across the nation.
“Our wholesale enterprise went to zero,” Hassell stated. “It couldn’t have been a worse day of the yr for wholesale to close down as a result of that’s the starting of the massive transport window to get T-shirts out for the summer time.”
With its lifeline seemingly shut down, Life Is Good contemplated chapter.
“Then we received collectively and we determined to concentrate on the alternatives, given the truth that we’re an optimistic firm,” Hassell stated. “We stated, ‘Effectively, now we have these new machines. Everyone is experiencing the identical factor within the nation proper now, so let’s make some T-shirts.’”
Quickly the corporate was producing T-shirts with graphics that had pandemic-inspired inspirational messages like “Keep cool” and “Keep house.”
“They bought like nothing I’ve ever seen in my profession,” stated Hassell, who joined the corporate six years in the past after stints with different attire producers and e-commerce retailers. “We made much more graphics in regards to the quarantine, and it not solely saved the corporate, we ended up having a document quantity yr in 2020, even supposing wholesale dropped 40% as a result of it was shut down for 3 or 4 months.”
Wholesale enterprise represented greater than 50% of the corporate’s revenues, Bert Jacobs stated.
“We actually have been form of compelled into an operational change, and the operational change didn’t simply get us by means of the pandemic,” he stated. “It did that — and we averted chapter due to it — however it form of launched us into this subsequent chapter, too.”
Life Is Good’s success throughout the pandemic by means of a line of T-shirts that projected optimism is the face of adversity additionally mirrored again upon the corporate’s roots, stated John Jacobs. He and his brother’s first brush with success after years of struggling got here just about as a fluke, when a batch of shirts they printed that stated “Life is Good” turned an immediate bestseller.
“The hope was, it doesn’t matter what’s happening with the financial system or if there’s a conflict happening, individuals nonetheless need to gravitate in the direction of one thing constructive,” he stated. “One of many issues that saved us within the pandemic was even when individuals have been at house on Zoom solely, they nonetheless needed to share one thing constructive, talk one thing constructive in an clearly very difficult time. The neighborhood form of rallied and saved us.”
The corporate’s skill to department out into customized work stems from how Life Is Good is continually updating its product line.
“We create 60 artworks each single week, and that interprets to about 250 merchandise as a result of we’ll put the graphics on sweatshirts and T-shirts and tank tops and hats and issues like that,” Hassell stated. “We are able to push the bestsellers out by means of our wholesale channels inside weeks, versus needing to attend 12 or 18 months to get these merchandise on a retailer’s flooring.”
Shoppers who purchase shirts and different attire by means of Life Is Good’s web site are literally ordering merchandise that don’t but exist. On the day we visited the plant in late Could, the corporate was gearing as much as fulfill one other bunch of buyer orders.
“We had good enterprise over the Memorial Day weekend, so we’ve received 45,000 shirts we have to print,” Hassell stated.
An indication inside Life Is Good’s new manufacturing unit in Hudson alludes to the corporate’s sense of optimism. (Courtesy of Life Is Good)
Making shirts to order
Life Is Good can print 14,000 shirts per day on every of its 12 industrial printing machines. Staff working the machines seek the advice of video screens as they feed shirts into the printers. Every clean shirt has a barcode that determines what design will probably be printed on it.
“Each single considered one of these shirts goes to have a unique brand on it. And each one might be going to a unique buyer,” Hassell stated as an operator fed shirts right into a printer. Shirts which have graphics on either side go into the printers twice.
As soon as these T-shirts are produced, they’re despatched for transport. Inside a warehouse with 40-foot ceilings, 102 industrial robots made for the corporate by Geek+ maneuver round lengthy aisles, discovering product and transporting it to ready employees.
“That is referred to as a goods-to-person system,” Hassell defined as robots carrying stacks of packing containers buzzed round on the manufacturing unit flooring.
“Up to now, we used to have individuals strolling up and down aisles such as you would do within the grocery retailer to select items,” he stated. “And now the picker is similar individual because the packer. The robots go decide up the racks and convey the merchandise to the individuals.”
Staff use video screens to see which merchandise to seize from the rack when robots arrive.
A employee prepares a bundle for transport at Life is Good’s new manufacturing and achievement heart in Hudson. The corporate’s 12 direct-to-garment machines make it attainable to print 1000’s of customized T-shirts and different attire in a single day. (Courtesy/Life is Good)
The Life Is Good manufacturing and achievement heart in Hudson is house to greater than 100 robots which are used to maneuver merchandise across the warehouse and put together them for transport. (Mike Cote/NH Enterprise Evaluation)
“You seize it, you flip round and there’s 80 buyer orders and there’s a light-weight blinking subsequent to considered one of them. You place it there, you hit the button, and by the point you flip round, the subsequent rack is already in place, and it’s telling you which ones product to seize,” Hassell stated.
The robots, which the corporate bought about two years in the past, have earned their preserve, Hassell stated.
“The robots are principally taking away a really mundane job of any individual strolling over there and searching on the shelf and taking one thing down. Our decide fee is 4 instances increased per individual than it was earlier than we purchased the robots,” Hassell stated.
The Hudson plant combines operations that have been previously unfold out in three buildings in Hudson and one in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Life Is Good presently occupies about 75% of the house within the plant, so it has room to develop.
“We’re way more bullish in regards to the future than even the good previous that we’ve had,” Hassell stated. “We see big alternative right here within the U.S., and overseas is just about untapped. We’ve a small footprint abroad by means of some on-line marketplaces, however the world is our oyster.”
