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When Monwell Floyd bought his first Northgate computer in the late 1980s, he couldn’t have guessed it would change the course of his life. At the time, he was working in sales and marketing for Lechmere, a now-defunct retail chain, and the machine was little more than a curiosity. But soon, neighbors and friends began asking him for help designing flyers, creating forms, putting ideas on paper.
“I started getting requests from salons, barbers and even fraternities,” Floyd recalled. “People needed tickets, flyers, all kinds of things. I realized I actually liked doing it.”
So, in 1989, Floyd turned his dining room on Brooks Avenue into a makeshift office. With a desk, a computer and a copier squeezed in beside the family furniture, he started building what would become Image Printers.
“It was really just me and the equipment,” he said. “But when people came through, it felt like a real client environment.”
Floyd’s business grew alongside the neighborhood. He designed materials for local shops, churches and community groups, while also teaching himself the ins and outs of printing. To supplement his knowledge, he took a job at one of Rochester’s first Kinko’s in Mount Hope Plaza.
“That was my school,” he said. “I was working, but I was also studying how the business really worked — from design to production to customer service.”
Within a few years, Floyd moved his operation into the Keelox Building on Fourth Street. Then came his first storefront: a flat building at 543 South Clinton Avenue. It was modest, but for Floyd, it felt like a milestone.
“I had a sign out front that said ‘Image Printers,’ ” he said. “I loved that little spot.”
Building clients and confidence
At Clinton Avenue, Floyd added equipment, including an offset press, and taught himself how to run it by helping another small printer with overflow jobs. That hands-on training paid off. By the mid-1990s, he had landed one of his biggest early clients: the Rochester Business Journal, which hired him to print postcards.
“That was steady work and really important for me,” Floyd said. “It showed me I could compete.”
Other clients soon followed, many of whom remain loyal decades later. Some have stuck with him through multiple moves, including relocations to South Clinton Avenue, the Hungerford Building and most recently, a downtown-adjacent space he hopes will be his final stop.
“My average client has probably been with me five years or more,” he said. “Some for 15, even 20 years. They’ve stayed with me wherever I’ve gone.”
Challenges and lessons
As a Black business owner, Floyd said he often felt he needed to prove himself twice over.
“You have to go the extra mile so your integrity and quality aren’t questioned,” he explained. But he turned that challenge into motivation, striving to deliver top-notch work and investing in professional networks, from the Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce to the Rochester Association of Black Journalists.
Financial lessons were harder earned. Starting out as a DBA tied his business expenses to his personal credit, nearly sinking him. With the guidance of friends and mentors, he incorporated Image Printers, separating his finances and eventually rebuilding his credit.
“That was one of the most important decisions I made,” he said. “It allowed me to grow.”
Today, Floyd passes those lessons on. He reminds young entrepreneurs to save a nest egg, establish business credit early and always, always network.
“Small talk can turn into business,” he said. “But only if you’re in the room.”
Giving back
For Floyd, printing has never just been about ink and paper. It’s about impact. Over the years, he’s employed and mentored young people, some of whom went on to start their own businesses. He also publishes Upstate NY Gospel Magazine, a community publication that highlights positive stories often overshadowed by negative headlines in other publications.
“When you turn on the news, you hear a lot of bad,” he said. “But if you look deeper, there are so many positive things happening—in the churches, with young people, in the community. I wanted to shine a light on that.”
More than three decades after he first set up shop in his dining room, Floyd still takes pride in serving small businesses, churches and nonprofits across Rochester. The technology has changed, the equipment is more advanced and the storefronts have come and gone. But his mission—to deliver quality work while uplifting those around him—has remained the same.
“I’ve always tried to encourage people to see what’s possible,” he said. “That’s as important to me as the business itself.”
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