Rising Stars: Meet Donna Umali of Burbank

Today we’d like to introduce you to Donna Umali

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I didn’t grow up wanting to be a custom T-shirt printer. In fact, I went to film school, and studied to be a writer, director, or producer of some sort, but I think life had different plans for me. I worked for a little while in the tv industry. I started in reality tv. In fact, I was an assistant editor on Celebrity Apprentice with Donald Trump so it’s interesting to see him now. I worked on scripted shows like Smallville as an assistant editor, and I also worked as a camera operator on various minor league sports and occasional concert. A couple of things entered into my life so I had to change my path. One of which was the sport of curling. It is the winter sport that you would see during the Olympics.

My first memory of curling was watching the 2006 Turino Olympics. That year, there was a blizzard so they focused on the indoor sports, and I was working on the night shift. It was the perfect combination as curling was being shown every day. I was sucked into the sport because it was so bizarre. I even made fun of it. There were a lot of things I didn’t understand. For example, how are they sliding like that on the ice, what are they throwing, what’s up with the sweeping, what are they yelling, and how the heck do you figure out the score?! So the most logical thing to do? Google everything!

My boyfriend at the time then found out that there was a curling club in Southern California, and asked for some information. We didn’t hear from them for 3 years. I think someone from that club collected the email list, and sent out a mass invitation to a new club called Hollywood Curling, and invited us to the first ever Learn to Curl. We decided to sign up just to say that we curled once in our lives. What a good date night!

Well, we sucked at curling, but had a lot of fun. It was a sport that both me and my boyfriend at the time could do together. He is 6 ft tall and very athletic. I was about 5′ 1″ and not able to beat him in many things, but in curling the ice was an equalizer. We signed up for league games and became one of the original members of Hollywood Curling. We started to get into competitions which was kind of addictive.

So the second thing that affected my life path was that I wanted to have kids. During this time, I married that boyfriend, and was pregnant with our first baby. I realized that maybe holding a full time industry job and raising kids were going to be a tough challenge. I wanted to play an active part in raising them like how my mom raised me; so I decided to take a break from working. However, I wasn’t one to just stay idyll. Something crossed my path that inspired me to do a part-time business.

I was at the LA County Fair where I came across this new technology that printed shirts without screens and harsh chemicals. It can be in full color and one-offs. At the time, most shirts were screenprinted, and pricing was dependent on the number of colors and quantities with very expensive set-up fees. You couldn’t really print one or 4 shirts very cost effectively. I had an issue because when I am on a curling team, we would want custom T-shirts as a uniform, and there were only limited options. Iron-ons which washed out, expensive screenprinting, or buying in bulk. Plus, we would also fundraise our tournament expenses through t-shirts sales. I thought to myself there must be a better way, and I saw the new tech (called DTG – Direct To Garment) as a solution to a few things:

1) Make affordable uniforms
2) Higher returns for our fundraisers
3) Make uniforms for other people
4) Could be a viable business where I could have a flexible schedule

I was very pregnant with the first baby when I launched DMP Printing in April 2011. I did everything, build a website, network with people, find vendors, find clients, set up SEO, take business classes from my city program, learn how to print which was a huge learning curve. The funny thing was that a lot of things I learned in film school like my graphics programs, producing, and networking helped me build this business and make it successful.

I thought that I would return to my industry job a year after I gave birth to my 1st baby, but I ended up getting pregnant 3 more times, and I also participated in bigger and higher level curling competitions, then we added more printing options like screenprinting, embroidery, sublimation, and vinyl. Sometimes I remember how long I’ve been with my clients by remembering which kids I had during my meetings with them.

After 13 years, we survived the pandemic, had 4 beautiful kids, and still going strong with both curling and the business. I actually ended up on the Philippine National Team for curling.

I think all this would not have been possible if I didn’t have a business that allowed me the freedom to do all the things I need to do for the kids and the curling.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It has not been a smooth road…in fact, it’s very bumpy!

Starting a new business while being pregnant and giving birth is definitely incredibly challenging. In fact, I pretty much had a baby about every 2 years for 9 years straight.

I would attend classes and meetings with my big belly bumping things, but I’d like to think that all the babies were getting a good education in utero.

Learning how to run a printing machine is very difficult with so many print tests and mistakes. Many things could go wrong, and it did. I remember one of my first clients had a print order with grey shirts that I bought from downtown because they were cheap. But I didn’t realize that the ink they used to dye their shirt had a chemical reaction to my pretreatment which was like a glue. It’s supposed to go on without notice, but when the two were heated together because the ink had to be set with heat, it started bleaching the fabric. It was a disaster. So I found a reputable source that made ordering stock easy, and when things happen like that, I can talk to the manufacture.

The printer itself needed to run on a very consistent basis. If you let it sit for too long, the printer head will clog and it’s very difficult to get the head printing at normal, and it’s very expensive to replace. It also ruins the pump, and when the pump starts to go, it creates a domino effect where the gears get stuck, and could cause the band to jam which creates a grinding noise, and overtime it might strip the chain and that will need to get replaced.

I was looking for a cheaper cleaning solution, and I decided to try vinegar, but it coagulated the system because there was a chemical reaction to the inks. I had to replace the pump and flush the system. That was not a good day.

I’ve short circuited a motherboard. Repairs are so much fun, especially when I have to pack the printer up (it’s too heavy to lift by myself) and drive all the way down to OC because that’s where the service center is located. I’ve learned how to do a few things myself over the years, but I still need to do the trek through traffic every so often. Sometimes you have to do what it takes to get the jobs done!

I always want to do a good job for the clients, but some people are just very bad clients. I had to learn some good lessons on how to fire bad clients. Because servicing those kinds of people will cause negative outcomes. It’s not worth it.

I breastfed all the children in between printing. Certain times of the day, I couldn’t print so I would take care of the kids and the household, and then print in the middle of the night. Eventually, I think that schedule was very taxing on my system, and I developed an autoimmune. Once I started changing a few things like diet, stress levels, and balance, then I got my health back on track.

During the pandemic, we had to shift gears. Nobody was doing any printing. Then, we learned that we can print custom masks and other PPE items.

Various strikes also slowed down the printing. Many of our clients were in the industry or made money through the industry, so it was a challenge to replace those clients until they had money to spend again, but what I found out was that I had another very lucrative client base in the music industry as musicians needed merch for their events.

I think the hardest thing was learning how to read people’s minds. Sometimes the client has a vision of what they were thinking, and it’s not at all what I was thinking. So I had to learn how to get everyone’s vision and expectations on the same page. I created a system that hopefully cleared up any confusion. It requires asking a bunch of specific questions, creating a visual mock-up, and an approval checklist. That way it’s very difficult to mess up. I was able to bring my success rate very high through this process.

I’m not really sure if I would recommend to people to do what I did which was have 4 kids and build a business. There’s a lot of demands on your time and energy. Both need love, patience, and perseverance. A lot of sacrifices sometimes have to be made. And maybe there’s some radical acceptance of the situations you cannot control. Most of my clients have been extremely understanding of my challenges and know that the printing service comes with babies and a lot of them. I try to give myself as much time for production to resolve issues that come up, but it’s not always possible.

I think when having both kids and a business, one must learn grace and how to forgive oneself. Otherwise, it becomes easy to spiral downward negatively and very difficult to rise back up again. Many businesses fail because one doesn’t believe they can continue, but I think I needed this business to survive for me and the family; so there hasn’t been any moment to really give up or give in.

However, I am at a new transition moment where the business has grown bigger than I thought, and I don’t have enough of myself to handle everything. I have to decide what to do now. Should I keep it a smaller more manageable size or should I blow it up, and give myself support systems so that I can sustain more workloads? Maybe it’s not a side business anymore.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Printing wise – DTG/DTF (Direct to Garment/Direct to Film) is still an exciting service for so many people who want affordable, full color prints, especially in low quantities. There still isn’t anything comparable for quality and price however new technology and methods pop up every so often. Because I expanded into so many other printing options, we are able to service people for a variety of their needs whether it’s big or small. I just shift the print methods and price effectiveness to what suits their needs and expectations. I think that’s why my clients love my process. I make it very easy for them to understand their options and feel at ease while they wait for their garments to finish. I think that peace of mind and trust is very important.

So I’d like to think that when a person comes to my office, they are getting a lot more than just printing. You know many people come with various needs…take for example, I have a very special place in my heart for people printing funeral shirts. Because my dad passed away in 2010, I can understand the process of grieving. Printing shirts could be a tool that could memorialize their loved ones and share it with others. I ask sincere questions about the stories that they want to share. I feel like I am an active participant in their life events whether it is an engagement, birthday, birth of a child, or death. My favorite thing is when my clients share me their photos of people wearing their shirts. They always look so happy and together. I’d like to think that I connect people together with my printing, to their past, present, future, and their friends/family and future connections.

The most unusual thing about me is that curling connection. Usually when people find out how I started my business they want to support me and my curling passion and continue to come back knowing that this is something they could be a part of in this indirect way. My story in a way is kind of like the Philippine version of the Jamaican Bobsled team. Some people think it’s pretty cool.

How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
So if people would like to order a custom t-shirt, they can schedule an appointment either through my website or calling or emailing me directly, and I will walk them through the process. Even if they have never printed before, I make it very easy for them once I ask my list of questions.

If someone doesn’t have a graphic, I can also walk them through a process of generating one.

Pricing:

• It’s custom to the order…typical pricing is like this one-off standard white T-shirt, 1 location: $25, dark garment: $35
• Custom mug: $14
• Custom tote: $8
• Typical Bulk Printing: $6-$8/print light garment, $12 -$15/print dark garment

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.dmpprinting.weebly.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dmpprinting/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DMPPrinting/
• Twitter: https://x.com/DMPPrinting
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/dmp-printing-burbank
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/donnavikaramusic
• Other: https://pqcurling.carrd.co/

Image Credits
Leianna Mendoza
Griffin Mendoza
Pete Hironaka
Marissa Messier