The Story Behind RH Prints Co

Our company had quite a fun beginning… Ever heard of the gorilla Harambe? Well if not, you’ll need to know he was a beloved silverback gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo. Sadly, a 3-year-old boy got into the enclosure with Harambe who then grabbed the child prompting a worker to shoot and kill the gorilla. The killing of Harambe sparked a huge amount of controversy on all media platforms in 2016. Riley Hasken, our founder, along with his friends decided to make printed t-shirts for a bar crawl in honor of the infamous gorilla at their college, the University of Iowa, in Iowa City. What started as an idea among friends to do a bar crawl, turned into an event bringing out over 1,000 people! Riley sold over 1200 t-shirts for this one event, drawing sales from all over the place, even in New Zealand. This is when Riley saw an opportunity to do more. With the proceeds from the bar crawl, he invested in the equipment to do screenprinting out of his room. Riley began his business RH Prints Co by googling videos on how to screenprint. What started as one bar crawl turned into event after event at and around the school. From bars to student orgs, Riley was printing and filling t-shirt orders like crazy. Most nights were spent without sleep, as orders were just too overwhelming for one person to fulfill. Then comes Mama Tina. Tina, Riley’s mom, had a huge part in making RH Prints what it is today. She would come into town and spend those sleepless nights with Riley printing alongside him.

 One of the best things about the start of RH Prints Co is that although we were so young, the relationships built even at the start are ones we still have to this day! Our earliest clients recognized the hard work and dedication Riley had for his customers, making the impossible happen at every turn. 

As RH Prints Co progressed, Riley had a mentor who recommended entering the industry with a different approach. He said, “You’re the idea guy and I’m the warehouse guy – let’s work on this together.” He inspired the idea to enter into this world as a resource to get any product from anywhere and have it printed for the customer. Now, we spend our time forming hundreds of trusted partnerships with providers. In doing so, it allows us to focus purely on our customers and no longer spend sleepless nights printing shirts one by one. 

The presence we built in our industry allows us to have an unlimited range of products and printing techniques accessible to our clients. One of the noticeable things about the industry was that most companies are limited due to what they have in-house. Individual print shops just simply can’t do everything. All parts of the job couldn’t be completed in just one space, and here is where that opportunity lay. Instead of a customer diving down the google wormhole to find every place that could accommodate pieces of their vision, we created a platform and a team that does all the research for you. We provide you with experts in the industry that will hand-select the best products and customize them to bring your vision to life. We don’t stick to what’s “in-house” we do virtually everything you can think of as we aren’t limited by one shop’s inventory. We look at all the gear you could think of, then provide you with invaluable feedback to help grow your brand in ways you may not even have envisioned. We always offer what’s new and trendy and bring everything straight to you without the stress of finding each product on your own. We’ve grown to have customers say, “Send me some cool summer stuff,” and that’s precisely the kind of reliability and trust we’ve built. You can trust us to bring to the table the absolute best for your company’s needs. Thus saving you time and money, because let’s face it who has time to research all the possibilities when we can do it for you! 

Know that RH Prints Co is still young, still adaptable, still growing, and always looking to top the experience you have with us at every turn. We are a strong team that you can rely on to make your goals a reality. Contact us today for a quote to get your project started!