The Whole
Enchilada

01

The Name

Where the “Approach Path” thread actually stands: the line was coined as “Approach Path Capital” — East Boston as the approach-path capital of Logan planespotting — locked May 8 with a decision to buy approachpathcapital.com. On June 25 a session dropped “Capital” from the public-facing easter egg and flagged the full name as “likely changing.” No new name was ever landed. That decision is still open, and it now gates paperwork: the DBA certificate and the domain both need a final name.

• Keep “Approach Path” — the aviation term stands alone, ties to the patch line, already echoed on the BBT easter egg (promo code CLEARED2LAND). The obvious front-runner.
• Verify the domain situation — was approachpathcapital.com ever actually purchased? If the name shortens, check approachpath.com availability and fallbacks (approachpath.co, approachpathsupply.com).
• 15-minute trademark knockout — free USPTO search on the final candidate before printing anything. Cheap insurance.

02

DBA vs. LLC — the wrapper

Short answer: yes, we can get away with a DBA, and the math says we should — with two guardrails.

Also on the list: a free IRS EIN (the partnership needs one to file its Form 1065 and open a bank account — 10 minutes online), a free business checking account, and — since production runs out of a home — one confirm by phone call to Boston ISD about home-occupation rules before the press gets bolted down.

03

Tax paperwork — your 5000A is called an ST-4 here

Total state fees for all of this: $0. The sequence matters because suppliers won't open wholesale accounts without step 3.

• Still have to register and file even when most sales are exempt — small vendors typically get annual filing (returns are quick; $0-tax periods still get filed).
• Own store = we collect. Shopify Tax handles the math free until $100k/yr. On marketplaces like Etsy, the marketplace collects — one more reason own-store bookkeeping stays simple.
• Out-of-state sales: no other state registration until ~$100k/yr per state. Not a today problem.
• Two honesty notes: equipment isn't resale — we owe 6.25% sales/use tax on the press and tools (~$180 on the lean kit). And blanks pulled from tax-free stock for personal use or non-resold samples technically owe use tax on cost. Cheap, just book it.

verify live mass.gov blocks robots, so the ST-4/ST-1 sequence above was confirmed through official form PDFs plus three independent tax-compliance sources — worth one live click-through on MassTaxConnect when registering. AZ certs don't transfer; MA only honors its own.

04

Partnership guardrails — before we buy equipment together

Not because anything's wrong — because co-owned equipment and co-created designs are exactly the two things that get messy later if they're only handshake-defined. One evening, one document, maybe $40 for a decent template (an attorney hour, ~$300–500, is the deluxe version).

• Splits & money: ownership %, how profit pays out, who fronts what. Anything either of us buys pre-profit gets logged as a capital contribution so nothing is forgotten later.
• The equipment: co-purchased gear is partnership property — write down what happens to it (buyout at fair value) if either of us steps back.
• The designs: the big one. Art created for the venture — who owns it if we part ways? Common answer: the partnership owns venture designs; each keeps pre-existing personal work. Decide it while we like each other.
• Tool reimbursements: already sketched in the vault — once profitable, the business reimburses each partner's actual business-tool costs (her Adobe, Tim's venture-allocated AI spend) rather than forcing an “equivalence.” Pre-profit, those track as contributions. An accountant should bless the accountable-plan treatment.
• Exit & tiebreaks: what a wind-down looks like, and who breaks a 50/50 deadlock (even “coin flip after 48-hour cool-off” beats nothing).

05

Blanks — the never-turn-away-an-order stack

The Tempe McCreary's role — walk in, grab what you're short, small markup, no $200 game — gets covered in Boston by a four-layer stack. Layer zero is the thousands of blanks already on the shelf.

Both S&S and SanMar require the ST-4 + business info to open wholesale accounts — which is why the tax paperwork sits ahead of supplier accounts in the checklist. Current street pricing runs roughly ~$5.50 for an NL6210 and less for a BC3001 in base colors (exact net pricing is account-gated; it'll show once the account opens).

06

Production — self-press first, contract shops for scale

The economics that make self-press the whole ballgame

DTF transfers without owning a printer

• DTF Express Boston — Woburn, MA (155 New Boston St, Unit R): $0.027/sq inch, gang sheets from $6, same-day print, local pickup. A full 10×12 front ≈ $3.24; a 3×3 left chest ≈ $0.25. This is the McCreary's of DTF and it's 25 minutes away. (Bostonian DTF is the #2: order by 4pm, pick up 10am next day.)
• Ninja Transfers (mail): 22×24 gang $35, 22×120 gang $92 — a packed 22×120 yields roughly 18–20 full fronts (~$4.60–5.10 each). Good for planned drops; Woburn wins for speed.

Contract shops for when a drop outgrows the garage

Every Boston-area shop gates real pricing behind a quote — that's normal. Names, minimums, and the national benchmarks to sanity-check their quotes against:

• Contract screen printing benchmark: 72 pcs, 1–2 colors ≈ $2.50–4.50/pc decoration + $12–25/color screen fee (often waived above ~72). A quote far above that range is a retail quote, not a contract quote — you know this dance.
• Contract embroidery benchmark: $0.50–1.50 per 1,000 stitches at volume; a 5–8k-stitch hat front lands ~$7–14/hat + one-time digitizing (~$50–60).

Patches — make vs. buy, with real numbers

Hands-on from day one either way: pressing every shirt, seating every patch on every hat, laser work when it arrives, QC, and the fun part — Carole Anne's art on all of it. Outsourcing patch manufacturing first doesn't outsource the craft; it buys us margin proof before the big-machine conversation.

07

The equipment list — what we'd actually buy

Add ~6.25% MA use tax on equipment (~$180 on the lean kit). And the standing alternative from the 7/2 board still exists as Tier 0: press run #1 through a contract shop or pressed-by-supplier DTF, buy the Hotronix out of drop-one proceeds — same rule that built the “gated on sales” plan, just now with two people voting on it.

08

Stickers — cheap, outsourced, tomorrow

• Sell at $4–5 at markets (80%+ margin), and drop one free in every order — cheapest loyalty program in existence, and Carole Anne's art walking around on water bottles.
• Alternatives if Sticker Mule's vibe misses: StickerApp (thinner, ~7 days), Sticker Ninja (thicker stock, ~13 days).
• DIY math doesn't work: a Cricut + inkjet setup runs $500–700 plus your evenings weeding vinyl. Outsource until sticker volume is a problem we're lucky to have.
• Small print: stickers are one of the few things we sell that's MA-taxable (6.25%) — Shopify Tax and the POS handle it, just don't be surprised.

09

Storefronts — the 3-URL question, answered

The hard rule, confirmed against Shopify's own docs: one store = one storefront, one theme, one checkout, one primary domain. Extra domains attached to that store just 301-redirect to it — no separate branding. Truly separate storefronts = separate subscriptions. (Shopify Plus “expansion stores” explicitly can't be unrelated brands, and Plus is $2,300+/mo anyway.)

Recommendation: buy all 3 domains today (~$11 each/yr at Cloudflare — protect the names), run one Basic store, and graduate a line to its own store only when its own sales pay the $39 without a meeting about it. Don't divide zero audience by three. Basic includes abandoned-cart recovery, discount codes, gift cards, and 10k free marketing emails/mo; Shopify Tax free under $100k/yr; card rate 2.9% + 30¢.

10

What it all costs

Year-one, everything-in bands — paperwork + insurance + storefront + equipment tier + first-drop consumables (DTF sheets, 100 patches, 100 stickers, poly mailers).

Ongoing burn once running: ~$80/mo (Shopify $39 + insurance ~$35 + domains ~$3) before per-order costs. Every equipment dollar logs as a capital contribution in the partnership ledger — who fronted what is never a memory exercise.

11

The A-to-Z checklist, in order

Sequenced because the dependencies are real: name → certificate → EIN → tax registration → ST-4 → supplier accounts. Owners: TIM / CA = Carole Anne / BOTH / LUCY (me — the AI back office).

12

Decisions we owe ourselves

1. The name. Keep “Approach Path” (drop Capital) or something new — and which name goes on the DBA certificate as the umbrella.
2. Confirm the wrapper. GP + DBA + insurance + written agreement now, LLC at a revenue trigger we name tonight (e.g., “first $2k month”).
3. Equipment tier and split. Tier 0 vs. Lean (16×16 or 16×20?) — and who fronts what, logged as contributions.
4. Storefront count for month one. One Basic + redirect domains (recommended) — and does the adult-humor line get a $5 Starter or wait entirely.
5. Patch route #1. Outsource embroidered to start (recommended), then which in-house route earns purchase #2: laser/leatherette or sublimation.
6. Cap press class. Entry unit now vs. Hotronix Auto Cap ($1,155) up front, given hats are core to the patch line.
7. The owned blanks. When does the inventory count happen, and what's brand-worthy vs. placement-practice stock.
8. Sticker design #1. Which art gets the first $73 run.