Business: Team Up Athletics – West Suburbs Chicago
Address: a home in Naperville
Phone/Website: 630-452-9913; https://teamupathletics.com
Owner: Jim Thompson, 47, of Naperville
Years in business: 9 months
What does your business do? “(We provide) custom jerseys, apparel, on-line team stores. One-stop shop for any youth sports club or school. Coaches’ gear. Need a bucket of balls? I can do all that,” Thompson said.
Is this part of a chain? “Yes, it’s a franchise. The mother ship is in Utah. … There are about 30 franchises. … I’m the only one in Illinois for Team Up.”
What’s the background? “I started this company in March. I left corporate finance and private equity behind. I was working in health care, doing the private equity dance where you grow companies fast and flip them.”
Why leave? “I got sick of it. Fifteen years of flipping health care companies. … I hate private equity. I think they’re terrible for the country. … They take small mom-and-pop businesses and little companies, consolidate them, then they do their thing, lay off a bunch of people to save money so they can turn a $10 million company into a $20 million company.”
“In doing that, profit is more important than the people. I had a tough time stomaching that, watching people get laid off, firing 40 people to save $10,000.”
Why did you start this business? “I’ve got a freshman son, Noah, at (Naperville) Central and a seventh-grade daughter, Charlotte, (at Kennedy). My freshman is a baseball player. (He) does travel baseball all over the place. My seventh-grader is in volleyball and I coach her. … I just enjoy youth sports.”
“I had a health scare a couple years ago and it changed my perspective on what’s important. I wanted to give back. I wanted to do something that allowed me a little more freedom and really focus on my family. I’ve got three and half more years with my son before he goes off to college. Those years are fleeting.”
A health scare? “I had a stroke a little over four years ago. … I made a full recovery.”
How does this work? “I start with a phone call, a conversation about the program. I’ll tell you my prices and what I can do. … What do you need? What are you looking for? How can I help? If you want to move forward, I can do some mockups. If not? No harm no foul.”
How’s the business going? “Good. Busy. But it’s hard. It’s more time consuming than I thought. The client part is not that bad. It’s the administrative part.”
“I recently did 80 orders for a gym. Multiple colors, multiple styles. I get stuff shipped to me and then I go through the 80 orders, put them together. It’s time consuming.”
Who do you work with? “Junior highs. High schools. Club teams. High schools. High schools are probably the No. 1 client, the No. 1 focal point. Club teams would be No. 2. Junior highs No. 3.”
What’s a popular item? “Custom jerseys are a big part of what I do for travel teams or high school programs. We have our own brand of apparel. We can do Adidas, Nike, the big major brands as well. Some program want bang for buck. Some programs want the name, want to see Adidas on their jerseys. We can do it.”
How do you find manufacturers? “That’s the perk of working for a franchise. They manage all those relationships, the vendors.”
What challenges do you face? “There’s a lot of competition. That is a challenge. If you want T-shirts for a camp, there’s probably a place that can do it cheaper. … I tell coaches if you want to figure out how to do this all on your own, you can do it cheaper. If you just want to be done with it and get a good price, come to me and I’ll handle all of it. One-stop shopping.”
What about pricing? “Our prices are very good. T-shirts for $20, $25. … I have a store open for my daughter’s volleyball club where $5 of every purchase goes to a foundation for travel players. We can build in fundraiser components into the team stores. … Down the road, I want to set up my own foundation to give scholarships to travel ballplayers. Travel sports are expensive.”
What’s your advice for someone starting a business? “It’s harder than you think it’s going to be. Be prepared. You can’t turn your brain off. … When you own the business, it never shuts down. You’re constantly worried about it.”
Steve Metsch is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun. If you know of a business you’d like to see profiled in Down to Business, contact him at metschmsfl@yahoo.com.
