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Meet Bobby Heckeroth

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Bobby Heckeroth.

Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I got interested in business while still in high school. I attended Westside High School on the west end of Houston at Briar Forest and Hwy 6. I started my first business while I was there selling wheels, tires, and automotive accessories online. I hired a web developer to make my website and found several local distributors of aftermarket rims that would dropship for me.

I would have to step outside of class to answer phone calls from my 800 number on my cell phone. It was a great learning experience but once I got to college I wanted to move on and ended up selling the website to a guy that was helping me with the business part-time. I went to the University of Houston because I wanted to major in entrepreneurship and they were the only school I found offering that at the time. It was an exclusive program that only allowed 30 students per class and I couldn’t apply until my sophomore year. While at UH taking my basic classes I started my second business – Trade-In Golf.

I played on the golf team in high school and I had some experience with eBay from the first business so someone asked me to sell their old golf clubs for them on eBay. That’s when I learned there was a pretty big market for used golf clubs. I didn’t want to have to rely on individuals to supply golf clubs for me to sell so I made deals with all the local golf courses. The deal was that I would facilitate a golf club trade-in program for their pro shops by buying their members’ used golf clubs. The pro shops would keep the cash and give their members store credit which increased their sales. I had most of the country clubs and golf courses around Houston supplying me with a steady stream of used golf clubs to sell. I used this business to help get me into the entrepreneurship program at UH.

While at the Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship, each student is paired with a mentor and mine was a successful commercial real estate entrepreneur that owned a global company headquartered in Houston. When graduation got closer I became worried that I wouldn’t be able to scale my golf club business and the numbers in commercial real estate were a lot bigger than golf clubs.

I ended up taking an internship at my mentor’s company in the brokerage department and learned how to sell commercial real estate. I got my real estate license and even closed several deals while still technically an intern. During the same time period, my dad was brokering real estate for car dealers that were shutting down or selling during the recession. He spent 25+ years in the car business himself and after exiting the business in 2007 started focusing on real estate. When I graduated I was offered a job at my mentor’s company and also had the choice of working with my dad. It was a hard decision but ultimately chose to work with my dad because I would have more entrepreneurial freedom.

A short time after joining my dad we decided we wanted to invest in another business. We looked at how much money we were spending on For Sale and Lease signs and thought the sign business would be a great opportunity. We invited a former employee of my dad’s to be the managing partner and purchased the FASTSIGNS franchise in Katy in 2010. After the first year we ended up buying out our partner. We had some disagreements and mutually decided to part ways. Around the same time, I was getting tired of the unpredictability of the brokerage business and decided to step into FASTSIGNS as the managing partner.

Shortly after that we got a phone call from FASTSIGNS International asking if we’d be interested in buying a failing location in North Houston. Historically it did well but the business was passed down to the children a few years before and it was now ready to shut its doors. We immediately worked out a deal and took over the operation before we actually closed the purchase. Over the next 3 years we re-staffed, moved it to a new location near FM 1960 and I-45, and regained profitability. We ended up selling it to another FASTSIGNS franchisee that was in the North Houston area as it was tough to manage from the other side of the city.

At the end of 2014 we also got a phone call from another FASTSIGNS franchisee that was ready to retire and looking to sell. This was FASTSIGNS West Houston located on Westheimer just west of Sam Houston Tollway. This was the very first FASTSIGNS location in Houston which opened in 1987. We were able to make a deal and completed the acquisition. We purchased a building across the street and moved the business to its current facility at the end of 2016. Today we operate FASTSIGNS Katy and FASTSIGNS West Houston.

Please tell us about your art.
We design, produce, and install custom signs, graphics, vehicle wraps, and other visual communication solutions for Houston area businesses. We work with schools, universities, property management companies, construction companies, small businesses and some of the largest employers in Houston.

It can be tough to describe everything that we actually do because it’s all custom but some of the most frequent applications are:

-Banners of any size
-Car wraps including full fleets
-Vinyl graphics including window, wall, and floor graphics
-ADA compliant braille signage (from one sign to complete buildings)
-Dimensional logos and lettering for interior office settings and building exteriors
-Installation of signs and graphics

There’s really no project too small or large. We can provide custom vehicle graphics for a customer with a single truck or hundreds of trucks. Earlier this year we completed a project for an oilfield services company that included re-branding over 500 vehicles across multiple locations in Texas and Oklahoma. Ultimately, we’re more than a sign company. People come to us with a vision and we provide our expertise in signage, digital printing, fabrication, and installation to bring that vision to life.

What do you think is the biggest challenge facing artists today?
In the last 10 years we’ve seen more and more competition online. It’s certainly a challenge for us as they compete mainly on price with commodity products. We’ve been able to overcome the challenge by focusing more on the customers that need a higher level of service. They’re looking for expertise, project management, and professional installation.

How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
A recent project we’re really proud of is the signage at Katy ISD’s Legacy Stadium, the most expensive high school football stadium in the country at the time it was built in 2017. We produced and installed all the sponsorship signage throughout the stadium as well as some general graphics promoting the individual high schools and school district. Hurricane Harvey hit right in the middle of our installation but we were able to get back to work once it was safe and complete the job right before the first game.

Another fun project we just completed was the signage for the Houston Sports Walk of Fame in downtown Houston at Greenstreet. We installed huge banners behind the walk of fame that served as the backdrop for the unveiling and we also wrapped the side of a 2nd floor skywalk that you walk under to enter the project. It was really cool to see Hakeem Olajuwon and Earl Campbell be presented with their stars in the ground right in front of our banners.

If we can help your business the first step is just to reach out to us through our website, email, or phone and tell us what you’re looking to achieve. That’s what’s great is that you don’t have to place your order online or choose from some predetermined products. It starts with consultation and from there we come up with a plan together.

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Getting in touch: VoyageHouston is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

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