Dave Hultin fell in love with printing by accident.

“It’s always by accident,” he said. “People seem to fall into the industry coincidentally, and then learn to love it.”

Hultin calls himself “a displaced music major,” who started printing after working at a printing company located where Vinyl Taco is today. This was back in the 80’s when,“a little something called Macintosh computer,” he said, was capturing the world’s attention. As the techie age took off, he fell in love for a second time – this time with all things technology.

Put the two together and you have Marketing Ideas for Printers, a Fargo-based company Hultin runs that offers a variety of marketing materials for printers all over the country, such as websites, social media, direct mail, and e-mail marketing.

Integrating technology into the printing world has been one of their biggest focuses, Hultin said.

“Printing has changed,” he said. “What used to be a craft and a trade now takes tech.”

To that end, Hultin and his team are launching a remodel, showcasing how tech can be used to make the print-buying experience more efficient. The old system requires printers to take data, such as how much material, what color, and what fold, and input it twice. There’s a gap between the website and the MIS system that is slowing printers down, Hultin said.

“It’s no longer acceptable to maintain isolated website and print MIS data,” he said.

What Hultin is planning to do is take the MIS system and merge it with the printer’s website. Further details are currently being kept confidential.

It’s a drastic change for many printers, Hultin said. But as his team begins to work with a small group of their customers, he is convinced that as time moves forward, this is the next technological advance for the printing industry.

“They [printers] cannot be the taxis. The taxis are going to die out. They have to be Uber,” Hultin said. “I want our customers to be the printers that survive and make a difference.”

Photos courtesy of Dave Hultin