Prison time, redemption, a brain tumor, entrepreneurial innovation, and the heart of a family man – Ak Kurji’s story has all the elements of a great movie, with the added appeal that it’s real.

Ak Kurji

The basic news is that Kurji, founder of PMGOA (asi/79982), just announced that he’s stepping down from managing the Texas-based supplier. He’s still a shareholder in the business, but he’s leaving its running to Louis Massaro, hired as president in August, and Gregg Szpicek, an outside sales consultant who is in line to take over as vice president of sales.

“It’s time for me to pass on the reins to more experienced executives who know how to support our distributors,” said Kurji, a serial entrepreneur who’s also launching a new tech-fueled on-demand business that he says will be a boon for promotional products distributors competing for business in the digital age. “I am super excited to have added our new team members.”

Still, the corporate management details hardly scratch the surface of Kurji’s story. With the help of his wife, Nara, and brother Nick, Kurji started PMGOA in his garage in 2012 when he was only 25 years old. While they began with just a single laser engraver and some blank wristbands to imprint, the business soon bloomed and was booming.

Nonetheless, as Kurji tells it, he was a young and naïve entrepreneur who didn’t fully understand the business world, issues related to legal compliance and more. That led to trouble. Through some shady practices, he ran afoul of the federal government and ended up pleading guilty to charges of conspiring to fix prices on promotional products.

According to authorities, Kurji and co-conspirators fixed prices on branded merchandise that included wristbands, lanyards, temporary tattoos and buttons. The accused sold the products online through e-commerce websites they operated from as early as May 2014 until at least June 2016.

The guilty plea on antitrust violations in 2019 led to Kurji serving eight months in what he described as a “federal camp.” It’s not a past he’s proud of, but he makes no attempt to conceal it.

“It’s been a long eight years of my life,” Kurji said of his tenure at PMGOA. “I made some costly mistakes. … I never wanted to hide them though. Many entrepreneurs have been thankful that I’ve shared my story because they were able to learn from my mistakes. I am just glad that part of my life is over.”

When Kurji got out of prison in April, he threw himself back into PMGOA. And this time, he adamantly maintained, all the dealings are in line with the law.

They've also been wildly successful.

As the COVID-19 pandemic raged, Kurji led PMGOA’s rapid pivot to selling masks and print-on-demand apparel. The business shift was deftly executed, and Kurji was able to add 150 jobs in just three months.

“We were able to pivot into fabric face masks and provide quick turnaround times,” Kurji explained. “PMGOA was slowly building its online print-on-demand presence, working with larger online retailers. When COVID hit, everything went online and PMGOA was in a fortunate position to have a large capacity to help fulfill when the demand surged online.”

The growth has been so big and swift that PMGOA just went under contract to build what Kurji described as a “state of the art” new facility in Rosenburg, TX. It will provide expanded production space – about 80,000 square feet; the current PMGOA facility, which is about 15 minutes from Rosenberg, is 20,000 square feet. The new facility will also have a full-court basketball court, bowling alley and gym for staff. “We have the ability to expand to another 120,000 square feet in the future as we grow,” Kurji noted.

All that seems amazingly positive – a truly inspiring rebound. Only things aren’t that simple, and there are wrinkles in this story of redemption.

On a purely business note, the rapid growth meant that PMGOA couldn’t consistently achieve desired customer service levels. Kurji freely admits this. However, he’s confident that this roadblock has been – and will be – smoothed over thanks to the capable leadership of Massaro, whose industry experience includes having formerly been an executive at supplier Cooler Graphics.

“[Massaro] brought two decades of experience and implemented a proper customer service program,” said Kurji.

Szpicek’s background includes sales leadership roles at suppliers such as Top 40 firm alphabroder (asi/34063) and Tekweld (asi/90807), where he was vice president of sales.

The personal side of things is more breath-halting: Kurji has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. It’s about 4mm and is located in his pituitary. He’s on medication to reduce its size. The silver lining? The tumor is benign. “It’s something I will have to live with the rest of my life,” Kurji revealed. Given the diagnosis, “I have decided to step down and have been focusing on my health, meditation and working out daily.”

Even so, there’s an entrepreneurial itch that he just has to scratch, and he’s doing that with a new innovative technology-driven startup he calls Swagify.com.

It’s a white label on-demand order fulfillment and warehousing service that fulfills and ships products, including apparel, accessories, and home and living items, for online businesses and distributors. “Our technology allows distributors to create their own white label Shopify app and use our facility for fulfillment,” Kurji explained. “They have the ability to choose their markup for their online clients, influencers and company stores. This allows the distributors to keep their supply chain hidden.”

While he has his hands full managing his health and getting Swagify.com off the ground, Kurji plans to devote ample time to family – something he didn’t have a chance to do in recent years.

“We are expecting another son,” Kurji said. “Due to my case a few years ago, I was never able to properly be there for my family as I was under so much stress and was not living in the present moment. This time, I do not want to miss out on my newborn. I want to be in the present moment.”