1 Million Cups Fargo rocks on with Kirk Anton, Hardeep Walia

Kirk Anton discusses Heat Transfer Warehouse.

Another morning of coffee and entrepreneurial discussion took place last Wednesday in downtown Fargo. Last week’s speaker was Kirk Anton of Heat Transfer Warehouse, who stepped up to demonstrate his company’s success, achieved in a relatively short time period.

1 Million Cups Fargo also had another layer of intricacy last week by including a second guest speaker. Hardeep Walia of Motif Investing made an appearance after the e-commerce breakfast series to discuss his online brokerage based in California. Emerging Prairie will publish more on Motif and the breakfast event later this week.

Without a job in 2009, Kirk decided to try his hand at selling heat transfer graphics for various products. The business concept, he explains, is simply turning plain shirts and garments into keepsakes – changing the mundane into the memorable. Initially bootstrapped and involving a sole employee, after four years Heat Transfer Warehouse is now a 16-person entity with offices in Fargo, Cincinnati, and Las Vegas.

As the company progressed, Kirk and his teammates realized they needed to differentiate from competitors in order to expand. They decided to focus on logistics and shipping with an overall goal of being able to ship orders to anyone in the U.S. within two days. The three office locations were strategically chosen to fulfill this task, and those decisions have marked a huge success. Over the past few years, Heat Transfer Warehouse has increased its sales by at least 50 percent, if not doubling in each single year.

Hardeep Walia speaks at 1 Million Cups.

Attendees of last week’s 1 Million Cups Fargo posed great questions for both Kirk and Hardeep. Kirk has been focused on convincing customers to use online orders to streamline his processes. Heat Transfer Warehouse has experienced challenges with some customers while transitioning away from the traditional sales call model, but even with this issue, the company continues to expand. It’s exciting to see such growth coming from a Fargo-based entity.

1 Million Cups Fargo is changing venues and times this week! Check out our presenters this Wednesday, March 26, at 9:15am in the Fargo Public Library Community Room. See below for an address. Expect an interesting pitch from Erin Nyren-Erickson.

Erin runs HQC Biosciences, a tool creator for identifying biological compounds, in Christine, North Dakota. And, of course, coffee is provided free of charge thanks to Miguel Danielson of Danielson Legal, LLC. If attending, take a second to fill out this form.