Volume 17 Number 3 • 2004

Pursue Your Dream

By Michael Fletcher, Owner of Bigsky Inkjet

Anyone who has a dream needs to pursue that dream, despite whatever anyone says to the contrary. Put your idea together, put it on paper, work through the rough spots if you believe that it can happen. I’ve been in computers for a long time and I thought about printers and what was available here in the Bitterroot Valley. Unfortunately, there wasn’t really a lot in the supply of printers and there wasn’t a place to buy printers here. So I thought, why not start something that would benefit the valley? Recycled cartridges—inkjet and laser—seemed to be the niche that was missing. So here I am with my new business, Bigsky Inkjet, and it seems to be doing ok.

I got help at the Bitterroot Job Service/Workforce Center. I was able to access funding through the Montana/Wyoming Careers through Partnership project, administered through the Montana Job Training Partnership. They helped me refine my business idea.

Naturally it started with a business plan and then I had to go from the business plan to reality. I had to figure out, budget-wise, how to make the plan work. After a lot of research, I found a company that sold the equipment necessary to do a professional job of remanufacturing and refilling cartridges that fit into the budget. I wrote them and they also let me know that they offered a school, if of course I purchased my equipment through them.

I did purchase equipment through them and I did go to school. It was a three-day course, and while that may sound like a short course, it was three full days. You could stay for the fourth or fifth day. But as I had been in the field of computers before, I felt that three days was sufficient for me. I felt really comfortable after that training period and so I came back raring to go.

But there wasn't quite enough money for my business, so the people at the Workforce Center looked into other sources and were able to get additional funds through Montana Job Training Partnership Montana Choice project. With the combination of the funds from the two Montana Job Training Partnership projects, I was able to get a pretty solid foothold on this. I'm just continuing to keep things going on a solid foundation.

Marketing my business hasn't been that difficult. I've been getting the word out through advertising. In the local advertising newspaper, "Tidbits," I have a 1½ X 5 inch ad running almost each week, and the size does change from time to time, but I get a lot of business that way.

It seems that my market right now is the professional market. I have the mortgage companies, I have attorneys, psychologists, and various other professional people and it seems that it is going to expand. I've also had brochures, or fliers if you will, printed up that I will be mailing and marketing by business - so that the attorneys here in the Bitterroot Valley will get a flier for attorneys in their mail boxes and the accountants will get fliers for accountants. I'll specifically focus on particular businesses and build the business that way.

Michael Fletcher
Bigsky Inkjet
127 W. Main, Suite 111
Hamilton, MT 59840
(406) 375-9331