“Wait a second, what’s a lanyard?” asked Amin Siddiqui into the phone. It was 2009 and his childhood friend Shamim Kabir was calling with a proposition. Kabir owned a factory in China that made bags. The straps for those bags, as it turned out, were the same material that were used to make lanyards.

For Siddiqui, the timing was right. He was already working as an engineer, he just bought a house with his wife Romana, was starting a family, and was confronted with the reality of rapidly escalating expenses. And though he enjoyed studying engineering when he came to the U.S. from Bangladesh for college, he discovered his heart wasn’t in it. Instead, he found himself gravitating toward entrepreneurship and business technology. Previous business opportunities hadn’t gone very far before he got the call from Kabir.

Of course, there was still that pesky matter of finding out the meaning of a lanyard. Familiar with the product but not the term, a quick Google search got Siddiqui up to speed. Two hundred dollars and one eBay account later, and he was in business.

It was from those humble beginnings that Siddiqui officially launched imprintID (asi/73651) in 2010 and built it into a thriving supplier with 33% growth in 2021 and projected sales of $27 million this year. The accolades are plentiful – a 4.7-star rating on ESP, several years as a Counselor Distributor Choice Awards finalist, and high marks from a recent ASI survey on which suppliers are most reliable right now.

Getting there, though, was anything but easy. In the early years, Siddiqui was still working full-time as an engineer and devoting his time to imprintID late at night. It was a barrage of 18-hour days. “A lot of credit goes to my wife,” Siddiqui acknowledges. It wasn’t until 2012 that he quit his engineering career and directed all of his professional efforts to imprintID. “It wasn’t easy, but I relished every single moment of it. I wouldn’t do it any other way,” he says. “This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

How did Siddiqui manage to make imprintID stand out in a crowded marketplace? He kept overhead costs low and consistently strived to improve quality. Top-notch customer service was a must, with a goal of answering the phone in three rings and replying to email inquiries within 30 minutes. Much of it was made possible with a close-knit team. In fact, nearly everyone from those early years is still with the company. “Sometimes their dedication and commitment make me look bad,” remarks Siddiqui. “They’re our extended family and have made this possible – the credit goes to all of them.”

Siddiqui’s knack for leveraging technology, borne out of his engineering background and methodical mind, has also been a differentiator. “That was my interest 15 years ago: How can we automate a business instead of running it the old-fashioned way?” he says. In 2015 for example, imprintID launched an ERP system that fully automates everything – artwork, approval, production and much more. Siddiqui says it would be impossible for a company of imprintID’s current size – 72 employees – to process its current load of 150 orders a day without such robust automation.

For seven years imprintID has been a top supplier partner for Meg Diamond. A “chief catalyst” with Geiger (asi/202900), she praises the company’s smooth order flow as well as its ability to quickly turn around virtual samples and deliver outof-the-box solutions. “ImprintID provides that rare instance of reliable quality, service and pricing all in one place,” says Diamond, who’s based in Timonium, MD. “Amin and the team at imprintID are the real thing and have continued to perform even through the last couple of challenging years.” Diamond has readily recommended imprintID to other Geiger colleagues, and has heard positive feedback about their experiences. “I guess Amin and his team will no longer be one of my best-kept secrets for success!” she adds.

Despite the success, Siddiqui isn’t resting on his laurels. A very early pivot into PPE in 2020 led him to invest heavily in sublimation. Now, the company’s RayOm sublimation line (named after his young sons Rayyan and Omar) includes shirts, towels, socks and more; a high-end activewear line on par with Under Armour is planned for launch this fall. Next year imprintID will move into a new 60,000-square-foot facility, the extra space from which will support the company’s planned goal of onshoring 40% of its product by 2025. “We want to reduce our dependability on China,” says Siddiqui, who’s also investigating sourcing options in Mexico. With plans to double its employee count in the next two years, Siddiqui is targeting 2025 to become a Top 40 supplier.

“We need to make sure we keep on improving our service, our commitment and our transparency to our distributors,” says Siddiqui in reference to the planned growth. “If that falls into the cracks, it’s going to come and haunt us.”