About PGH PRINT SHIP
“Doing professional printing, for now, twenty years through different mediums, I’m glad I’m continuing to grow regularly as a printmaker and small business owner.“
- Josh Snider, Owner & Operator
History
My name is Josh Snider and this is the history of how PGH Print Ship became what it is today.
April of 2014 my son Shark was born. I became a full-time stay-at-home dad. To occupy my time and continue to earn an income I knew I’d need to start a business that I could do while caring for my son. I figured if it could keep me busy and make money at least until he’s in pre-k, that would be a good start. If it worked out past that, even better.
At the time, I had no idea what that business would be, but I had owned a business before and I knew that I could do it. I was working at a call center, a beer store, and a corporate copy center. I was choosing between a photo-booth, professional photography, and some other ideas when I was working at the corporate copy center and rang up a small stack of paper for $80 and realized how much better value I could be providing to my community while still earning a healthy income.
I bought a small but hardy desktop laser printer and started telling everyone I was doing printing. The brand was S. N’Son Printing and I took my son with me on most of my meetings and deliveries. After taking over my small apartment with printing equipment and supplies I bought a full size copier and found an art studio at 412 Studios in Etna, formally 448 Studios. It was so small I could spin in my office chair and kick my feet against my desk, copier, shelf, and my son’s pack-n-play. But it worked as a good place to grow. The best part of this process was that my son Shark worked with me everyday for the first 14 months.
I printed some business cards for Revival Print Co. and asked the owner Daniel if we could grab lunch. Revival Print Co. was a screen printing shop (apparel) and I did all paper printing. I had owned a screen printing shop for seven years in Southern California, so I wanted to see his and talk shop. We ended up referring customers to each other for almost a year when one day over pizza Daniel mentioned he was looking for a bigger space. I was looking for more space myself but wasn’t ready to pull the trigger on my own store front. I asked if he’d be interested in sharing a space and he wanted to hear my pitch.
We moved in to the new space in Lawrenceville together in 2016 with a co-working partnership that agreed to share the space, name, and customers while keeping our financials and businesses themselves separate. This worked out really well for both of us and after two years we both grew to the point where we couldn’t be contained in the same space together with the expansions we both continuously made.
2016
700 Customers - Revival Print Co.
500 Customers - S’ N’Son Printing
2018 - 3400 Customers
We quickly grew into the new space in Bloomfield late in 2018 called Flower City Printmakers where we spent three years expanding our product line and improving on the equipment we had. Our customer base grew to over 5000! For a short time we opened a second location in Bridgeville but had to make the tough decision to close when COVID-19 hit. In 2020 we won PGH City Paper’s Best Of 2020 #1 Design Agency. After finding a way to use every inch of the space in Bloomfield, we knew we needed something bigger.
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|2020 - NOW
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We found the perfect location in Etna called PGH Print Ship that’s almost twice as big, only fifteen minutes away from our previous location at Flower City Printmakers, and has a parking lot! We rebranded because we’re now offering to print and ship every order.
