Our founding team has spent decades building the kinds of member communities, supplier partnerships, and business infrastructure that help independent companies grow stronger together. Along the way, we’ve managed more than $10 billion in purchasing volume.
We won’t claim to have run a screen printing shop. We haven’t. What we know is the other side of the table: how these agreements actually get made, and what it takes to get a room of owners to trust each other.
“STCH is not a buying group or a trade association. However, we look to keep some of the best elements of those groups, while evolving the model to include value-based services that benefit both supplier partners and members.”
“Peer groups are the heart of the four pillars. It creates an opportunity for the small and mid-sized business owners to build an advisory board in a way they could not do on their own.”
“Having been the guy who ran procurement and purchasing operations for Fortune 1000 companies, when you have large entities building supply chain answers, you end up with a continuing conversation, over and over, negotiating how the margin gets split up. … So what we are doing here is changing that model a little bit, keeping the best elements of a buying group intact, but bringing more value to both the supplier and the member as the group evolves.”
Keith KirkFrom “How STCH Differs from Traditional Buying Groups” “We love buying groups. … They help give independent shop owners leverage to compete with larger companies. … We wanted to find a way to not replace buying groups or trade associations, but to evolve the model a little bit and eliminate some of that friction. So the goal here is to build more of a sense of community between the members, each other, and the suppliers.”
Daniel BendeleFrom “How STCH Differs from Traditional Buying Groups” We started STCH because these trades have been left out of what other industries have had for thirty years: the peer rooms, the shared training, the trusted partners, the place to gather. The shops doing this work deserve all four, and building them is the part we know how to do.
Our advisors joined STCH on the PRINTING United Expo 2026 stage for “Collaboration over Competition,” a panel on why independent shops do better together.
