Brandon McGee and Tiffany Weber have recently opened their first brick and mortar location in Central City. They started their business on June 1, 2019.
Weber says “In 2018 we met another business owner that was trying to sell her business. It was selling local artists’ prints and pre-made stickers to gift shops. We worked hard at this throughout the year. We started marketing to dispensaries because Brandon was working at one in Central City at the time. The dispensaries kept asking us if we could make them custom stickers with their own logo on them. We realized this would be less driving around the state and more working from home and that sounded great, and it looked like it would be much more profitable. So, we found an international supplier and became a sort of middleman for custom stickers. Customers would order through us, we’d do a little design sometimes, then order from our supplier and have them shipped to us for quality control before we shipped them out to the customer.
This was going OK for a couple years, but we weren’t really making any money, we didn’t have great margins, and our turnaround time was almost 3 weeks. So, in late 2021 we decided to buy our own large-format vinyl printer and cutter. Now we print most of our stickers in-house in 3-5 business days.”
The story gets even better from there. Weber says, “The coming together of four business owners in the Mayor Willie’s space was pretty random. The previous owners, Dave and Karen, asked Brandon and me to take over the business from them. We met Cait and Tim (the other owners) at the Levitt Street Market last summer, where we both had booths.
“They just walked in one day while we were there at the end of December, before we had completely decided what to do with the huge space. Cait had run a food truck with coffee and burritos in Breckenridge with great success, so she offered to run the café upstairs, and Tim had some really cool ideas for the RC shop downstairs. All of us of course said we needed to talk about it, but we all had really great feelings after that meeting, and it was pretty much a done deal before they had left the building that day.”
Weber brings to the businesses her extensive knowledge of sales and experience in starting a new business, as well as an analytical, “let’s get down to business” attitude. McGee grew up listening, watching and living business with his family. Most of his family members are entrepreneurs or otherwise involved in business. He learned really important skills like how to use empathy and ethics in business. He connects with people really well. He’s also the quality control shark and has a great eye for perfection.
Red Rocks Stickers is a graphic design, customization, and sourcing firm. They print in-house stickers and vinyl banners. They can even make one-off custom T-shirts while you wait! For everything else imaginable, they have a small group of vendors they work with – some they’ve worked with for years – who can customize just about anything. This includes embroidered hats, silkscreened hoodies, T-shirts, jackets, lanyards, lighters, socks, beanies, and so much more. Weber says, “If we don’t already have a vendor that customizes what you’re looking for, we’ll source multiple vendors until we find one with a good reputation and a reasonable price.”
Weber further iterates, “The most FUN part of our business is working with our team of about 25 artists from all over the world. We work with all sorts of artists, from graphic designers to children’s illustrators to graffiti artists. They are each so unique and talented it makes me happy to get to show their work to the world and connect them with paying opportunities. You can see some of their work in the gift shop downstairs.”
They have brought in art by artists from Loveland and Colorado Springs, as well as art from California, Texas, and Connecticut. They want to bring something more colorful and youthful to Main Street. They’re really excited that Bedrock RC will give big and little kids something to do besides gamble.
Their favorite part of what they do is working with artists. The gift shop isn’t meant to be a cash cow. It’s an opportunity to bring something new and exciting to the Central City art scene. It also gives independent artists a chance to sell their work out of brick and mortar stores, which many of them have never done before.
They plan to continue to take a holistic approach to business. They believe that a successful sale is more than just a transaction, it’s about building a relationship. They want all of their customers to want to buy from them again and tell their friends what a great experience they had and what great quality and service they received. They want to make sure they’re helping their customers in every way possible, even if it’s not related to the project at hand.
The business has a group of six remote contractors who work selling stickers, custom merchandise, and graphic design services to businesses around the country. They have customers in multiple states and they ship anywhere!
The business doubled their sales between 2020 and 2021 and plans to do the same in 2022. Weber says, “We are always looking to add contractors to our team that are interested in having fun conversations. It’s not your average job, we’re definitely not your average company to work for. Our contractors all work on commission so it’s a completely self-driven platform they’re given. They don’t have quotas, no one gets fired for underperforming, because they set their own goals. It’s a nice little family we’ve got going.”
Moving forward, they see making a home for themselves in Central City by becoming involved in the community. They just had the first Small Business Meeting at the Ante Up Café last week. A few small business owners got together to discuss ways that we can help each other and make the city even better. It was a great experience, and they can’t wait to get more involved.
Covid did not impact their business.
Red Rocks Stickers & Gifts is located at 125 Main Street, in Central City. They can be reached at 303-668-1741. Check out their website https://redrocksstickers.com/ or their social media at Facebook.com/redrocksstickers, Instagram.com/redrocksstickers or Twitter.com/redrockssticker.
Sponsored by Gilpin County, with funds from the American Rescue Plan Act.
