Meet Chari Pack, the entrepreneur behind Persnickety Prints, who took center stage as our Featured Founder at April’s RevRoad University.
In this interview, Chari divulges her scrappy strategies for scaling her business – and we’re not just referring to her love for scrapbooking!
Here are five lessons we learned from Chari.
Chari bootstrapped Persnickety Prints from $0 to $1 million in only three years, never spending a dime on advertising.
The infancy of her business coincided with the rise of the Internet. Chari got creative and found free marketing channels through online forums and blinkies on blogging sites.
She printed coupons and handed them out anywhere she could find a crowd—parades, rodeos, etc. Chari purchased second-hand equipment for her print shop and used furniture for the lobby.
“Sometimes we think we need to have a glass house up on the high corridor with our big name out front in order to be a legit business—or think we need to have all this money and funding. But I didn’t believe that. I didn’t want it. For me, it wasn’t really about the name or the status.”
For Chari, true success meant sticking with lean strategies and staying debt-free while growing her business.
Chari started her business when she was 35, after years of changing diapers and scrapbooking from her kitchen table.
When she found something she was passionate about—telling stories through printed photos—working through problems was fun and she enjoyed the journey.
“I think a lot of us see the end result of a business and we don’t realize how hard it is to get to that point. A lot of people start businesses and quit, saying, ‘This is too hard.’ But it’s been hard for everyone.”
Very few businesses go from zero to hero in under five years. There is no get-rich-quick scheme and there is no predictable path to scaling.
In the era of instant gratification with everything at our fingertips, Chari emphasizes that building a business takes time. There will be ups and downs and in-betweens. But those who are willing to hustle and pivot along the way will rise to the top.
Everybody has some entrepreneurialism inside them. And people rarely set out to start a business just for the sake of starting a business.
Most businesses are born from someone who discovered a problem that needed solving.
“I had no business plan, zero education, and had no clue what I was doing. I just tried everything,” Chari recounted.
She taught her children to get out and experience life because that’s how problems are discovered.
“I think one disservice we offer to our kids sometimes is giving them everything.”
Chari believes that great things need to be worked for. From wishing your ski boot clipped differently to wondering why some photo shops print richer colors than others, thinking outside the box to find solutions will lead you down the path to solving real-world problems.
It’s easy to compare your business and your success to others. You may read a headline that so-and-so company raised $20 million, or so-and-so landed a deal with Elon Musk. But that doesn’t mean those things are right for your business.
“Every person, every entrepreneur is different—they have different strengths and weaknesses. And every business model is different,” Chari said.
Chari advocates that success is not one-size-fits-all and counsels that comparison is destructive to growth.
For some, success is defined by money and raising funds to scale quickly. But for Chari, success meant balance in life and financial freedom.
For the last decade, Chari aimed for consistent 10% year-over-year growth.
Business was thriving and her team was shipping out thousands of orders per day, but Chari knew there were additional growth opportunities. Expanding into different markets, buying new equipment, building out larger teams—there were so many avenues, but Chari didn’t feel she was capable of doing it herself.
“You start a business and it becomes your baby. It’s my fourth child. I’m so emotionally invested in it, but I also want it to succeed,” Chari shared.
Despite this deep connection, Chari recognized the need to step aside to facilitate the business’s expansion.
“I felt like I was the one stalling it a little bit because there’s so many opportunities with it,” Chari reflected.
“I have to put it in someone else’s hands—someone that has more people and resources.”
Last year she found the right buyer and sold her company to enable its continual growth.
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RevRoad University is a monthly lunch & learn event for entrepreneurs. Enjoy a short training on the best practices for your business. Then, hear from a Featured Founder on the ups, downs, & lessons they have learned throughout their entrepreneurial journey. Join us online at youtube.com/revroad or in person at 412 W River’s Edge Dr., Provo, UT 84604 (RevRoad HQ).
