Check Out Mike Condo’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mike Condo

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I have worked in music my entire working career. 10 years ago I was working for Gotee Records and decided to press one of our albums on vinyl-Relient K “MMHMM”. We sold quite a few direct to consumers and SMLXL Vinyl was born. We then planned on a schedule to release the bands other albums. Relient K then asked if I would also take over their web store and fulfill for them. With my connections in music I was able to get a bunch of exclusive licenses to press albums on vinyl and as Smlxl Vinyl grew so did our store roster as more and more artist came asking for us to take over their stores. The owners of Gotee gave me part ownership in the company with them-something I know they didn’t have to do. Fast forward 8 years-we got tired of telling artist where to go get stuff made and opened SMLXL Merch/Touring. This made us a full service company-creation, production, ecom and touring. We now have over 200 clients and no longer just help musical artists. Pretty much if you have something that needs to be made/shipped we can do it for you.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Not smooth at all, but fun. It is great being your own boss and we do have all 5 of our kids working full time for us. I am a history major and was looking to teach and coach football so had no idea what I was doing. I learned as we went-how to get vinyl pressed, ecom and warehousing. The internet was my friend for sure-Researching vinyl and finding Shopify (ecom platform). Setting up the warehouse has been trial an error. it has never been perfect and sometimes an organized mess, but we survived and got every order out within 24hrs usually. We are in the process of of change the warehouse to a state of the art warehouse management system which we hope will enable us to continue our growth and help our clients-both artists/influencers and consumers.
Having great partners is huge -Joey and Toby(gotee owners) and Irving Ronk have been great.
Biggest obstacle is trying to decide when/where to grow and when to stay put. With leaning on all of our children to start we were able to ease the growing pains during the 1st few years. Now we are a staff of almost 20.
My challenge now because of our growth is to be able to give up parts of “My Baby” to other people and let them do what we hired them to do. One thing I never want to be is a micro manager. You hire someone to do a job let them do it. they will make mistakes just like I did best thing is let them learn from them and help when asked.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I touched on this already in the other answer. We are a ecom/merch/touring company. Helping influencers/musical artists of any size with their merch and web store so they can do what the are called to do. I am most proud of two things. one looking at where we started in a 300 sq feet basement in Franklin 10 years ago to over 15000 sq feet now. We used to be so excited having 10 orders a day when we started. now we have 2+ pallets a day leaving the warehouse. The other thing is having my kids work for us. If you need anything manufactured or shipped we would love to help you out.

What does success mean to you?
I have always thought to me success is where passion and enough income to provide for the ones i love intersect. I never thought about chasing money as I have seen so many people hate their jobs but the money is too good. They are usually miserable even when not at work. I have always had the view I want to be happy and provide for my family. With that in mind I can say I am successful. in my 20’s and 30’s it was hard with 5 kids but we made it work now with a growing business comes new challenges. not only do I have all my kids counting on this company I also have 10+ new kids that I care for and want to be sure all are taken care of and happy. It is great knowing that we built something that is bigger then we thought possible at the start and it now helps people support the ones they love.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.smlxlmerch.com
• Other: https://www.smlxlvinyl.com