026: From Haircuts to Digital Printing to India Outsourcing. Find out what Tarang Gosalia is up to now…

Background on Tarang Gosalia of Optamark:

Tarang Gosalia is the CEO of Optamark. His company is an award-winning online print business, he currently consults for some of the largest companies and startups in the United States (Wayfair, OlaPic, the NFL, Draft Kings, ESPN, and thousands of companies) to streamline their print and promotional product purchasing. He has since evolved the services to also include Web/Application Development coupled with Accounting and various back-office functions. Tarang has saved his clients millions of dollars on poor manufacturing decisions by addressing manufacturing bottlenecks within the 500 year old printing industry. He graduated from Babson College in 2009.

Time-Stamped Show Notes:

[0:48] CEO and Founder of Optamark.
[1:09] Started the company 2 years after he graduated.
[1:17] Optamark is a traditional printing promotional products company.
[1:34] In 2011, he opened an office in India where they have a full team of technical guys.
[1:58] They started with one manufacturing facility.
[3:04] Optamark is now in 4 locations: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Texas, and Arizona. Their sales office is in New York and their back office, where 40 their staffs are working, is in India.
[3:32] Tarang’s parents were originally from India and migrated in the US. He was born and raised in Massachusetts.
[3:53] He went to Babson College because he wants to focus more in entrepreneurship.
[4:27] In two consecutive years, Optamark was included in Inc 500 list as one of the fastest growing private companies in America.
[5:22] He was always interested in franchising that right after college he opened the first Red Mango location in Massachusetts.
[5:48] “As an entrepreneur, I don’t like being told what to do and I like to break the rules a lot.”
[8:18] He franchise a hair salon business called Great Clips.
[13:30] He realized that the franchising was not for him and decided to focus more in Optamark.
[16:03] “I quickly realized that a lot of people in the industry (printing industry) aren’t necessarily the most educated people. Their very focus on what they produce in terms of manufacturing perspective..”
[23:23] He believes that people in terms of buying perspective always wanted to have technology to make their process easier.
[25:59] Tarang was able to get an online software that could be utilize for any print broker manufacturer and added layers to the technology and started from there.
[27:51] He had a contact back in college who had access to back office in India.
[30:09] His biggest mistake was he didn’t set the appropriate culture in the office from day one.
[40:49] “You’re gonna try, test, make mistakes, essentially step back up again and do it again.”

Fabulous 4 Questions:

📖 📚 Favorite Book(s)? The Lean Startup by Eric Ries & The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss
🙌😎 Favorite Amazon.com purchase? Vitamix Blender
🌱💸 Favorite Tool that's GROWN your Business? Slack
💭💡 BIGGEST Challenge keeping your Business from GROWING? Employee Culture