Ellington

In 2001, Jeff Becker and Nicolay Thomassen, a pair of dedicated UW students, began designing T-shirts and gear for various organizations at the UW.

Now the pair has a growing custom apparel company, Kotis Design, that came from their hard work and determination.

They started out in the basement of Thomassen’s uncle’s business. Their company then expanded to Lake City in Seattle in 2006, but it quickly outgrew this office and found a need for warehouse space.

Kotis Design then moved its corporate office to its current location in Lynnwood, Wash.

Earlier this year, the company opened an additional office on Northeast 47th Street and University Way Northeast. Here, it employs several UW students as part-time sales staff, working 10-15 hours a week selling Kotis’ product.

“We thought it would be beneficial and convenient to have an office close to the UW campus,” said Daniel Becker, Kotis’ IT director and an owner.

Students are given the responsibility of calling a certain campus and talking to all of its organizations. They ask if the organization has any upcoming events. If so, they offer to send them some artwork for it.

“It’s sometimes a lot more convenient than going through the Yellow Pages or choosing a random company off the Internet,” Becker said.

Last summer, Kotis Design hired four student employees to be salespeople at its corporate office in Lynnwood as a business experiment. So far, this has proved beneficial in increasing sales.

One hundred percent of the business is driven by the undergrads employed by Kotis, said Eric Hamlin, the company’s sales manager. They are the lifeblood of the company.

A good portion of business is done through referrals and the student employees telling their peers about Kotis’ products.

Kotis Design sells to about 300 campuses throughout the nation and sells licensed apparel at 17 universities.

Here at the UW, sororities, fraternities and the Law, Medicine and Dentistry schools are just a few of the company’s clients.

Kotis has also designed T-shirts to be given away at sporting events for UW Athletics, as well as this year’s commencement ceremony T-shirts.

Other customers include Boeing, US Bank and Jones Soda.

For Jones Soda, Kotis designs the pull signs seen in QFC. The pug’s face on the Jones green apple sign is a Kotis artist’s dog.

But Kotis Design didn’t start out on top.

“Nobody in our company has had a lot of experience,” Hamlin said.

Like several others working for Kotis, this is Hamlin’s first job out of college.

Hamlin considers everything Kotis is doing one big experiment. Most of the employees have never worked in another business setting and are not always sure if the things being done are standard business procedure or not.

Being in this type of setting is the most engaging thing, Hamlin said. Half of the ideas fail, but it’s exciting not knowing what to expect with the next day or even the next phone call.

“The coolest thing about working for a company like this is your opinion matters,” Hamlin said.

The opinions of those at Kotis have pushed the company to strive for innovation in its artwork and the way in which it interacts with customers.

Daniel Becker created a Web site in which artwork is posted by the designer and viewed by the customer. Changes are then made, and the artwork is updated and approved.

It typically takes five to seven days for a customer’s item to get printed. With several printing locations throughout the country, including Wash., Kansas, Florida and Ohio, Kotis can typically get a product to a customer within three days.

Kotis Design is growing aggressively within the custom apparel design industry. Though the industry’s growth rate is 1.4 percent, Kotis has seen growth much higher than that.

“We’re constantly getting new customers,” Hamlin said.

The college office located on the Ave receives between 160 and 180 orders each month, and 30-40 percent of those orders are new business.

“We’re not happy with staying stagnant,” Hamlin said. “Until Kotis is a household name, I won’t consider us a success.”

The accomplishments Kotis has seen thus far can take some credit from the experiences the owners and employees had during their college careers.

“One of the strongest things that has helped me were leadership roles,” Hamlin said. “Those roles have helped a lot being in business.”

All of the owners and professionals within Kotis were committed to leadership positions within organizations such as fraternities and churches.

Hamlin recommends that college students never take a safe bet.

“You’re young — do it,” Hamlin said.