John Peterson offers living proof that taking your printing business to the next level doesn't have to mean turning your back on your roots. Peterson is the owner of Kopytek in St. Louis, MO, which he founded as a Kwik Kopy Printing franchise in 1986. Today it is a progressive commercial printing firm that is about as far from the "mom & pop" concept as you can get. In fact, this year Kopytek debuted in QP's Top 100 at #60 with sales of $4.1 million.

From the very beginning, Peterson had high aspirations. Contrary to what most quick printers were doing at the time, he chose to locate his company in a semi-industrial area rather than a traditional retail site. This allowed him to concentrate his sales efforts on the more lucrative business-to-business market. Nonetheless, it was still a small shop operating with a single press.

By the late 90s, the company had grown and competition issues had developed in the area surrounding the original location. This prompted Peterson to move to a much larger facility in a strictly industrial area that had no walk-in business. Along the way, the franchise affiliation ended and the company name was changed to Kopytek.

Dream Come True

In 2007, Peterson began the process of building his own 20,000 square foot facility, which the company moved into earlier this year. He has also acquired a Screen (USA) CTP system and a Ryobi 784 perfector press. When asked how it all came together, Peterson's answer is succinct. "You can't do a new facility and buy all this equipment without good financing, so it starts with the financing. In our case, we were able to do a tax exempt industrial revenue bond, so we got an extremely low interest rate over a long amortization period. So I think the first thing a printer has to do is look for some creative financing."

When discussing the changes the new equipment has brought about in his company, Peterson says, "Initially, when we started in '86, what really changed it was the Macintosh. And then, what's really changed it to this next level we've gone to is the CTP system. What it allows us to do is to burn a 29" plate in a minute and a half and have it on the press and set up in 10 minutes instead of 45. So the pressman who used to run a 2-up format is now running a 6-up or a 4-up."

Having the larger format perfector press also plays into Kopytek's improved capabilities. "Your press operator is only here for a finite number of hours and if he can set that press up in the same amount of time as an ABDick, why run a 2-up when you can run a 6-up?" Peterson asks.

He illustrates that point with an example. "We have a job right now that is a fairly short job. It's a 10,000 press run, 23x29", so it takes us about an hour, start to finish. But it's a two-sided, black ink pad and they need 60,000 sheets. So we just run that on the perfector in an hour. On a 2-up format, that takes you all day. So that's the difference. The job that once was an all day job is now just an hour job."

For many, the perception is that transitioning from 2-up to a 4- or 6-up format requires a different business model. Or at least, a different sales strategy. Peterson disagrees. "We sell it exactly the same way," he insists. "Do we have some other markets? Yeah, we can do a presentation folder now. We can do a poster now. So we've got some other markets, but what we found out along the way was that in a lot of cases we were a stop gap measure. We were running five, or 10, or 15,000 sheets to get the client through while he waited on the rest of the order from his other printer. So now, we're the other printer. Instead of five or 10,000, we'll just keep running and deliver 100,000 for you tomorrow."