Meet A.j. Dennison

We were lucky to catch up with A.j. Dennison recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have A.J. with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?

I grew up in a household where I had a very hardworking mom who was an entrepreneur who always worked so hard to provide for us and instill in me how important it was to work towards your goals, and a father who was an entrepreneur for my entire life who always showed me what it was to work hard and dream and build, in different households. . My parents were divorced and both of my step parents were always beyond hard working where my stepmother was and is an entrepreneur and my my step father worked for the school system and always worked two sometimes three jobs. I grew up watching it in my life. I knew the value of money very early on and I always knew that if I wanted to have everything in life that I always dreamed of, including a family and live on Long Island, I knew I had to make it happen for myself like everyone surrounding me always did. I have always had this drive inside of me screaming to do more, work harder, build, build, build and always push ahead. I’ve always had this voice inside my head whispering of new ideas and I knew my hands were the only one who would make it happen. I worked for my father for almost 13 years watching that man work hard everyday, and watch him build a life he always wanted, so I always learned good work ethic. No matter at home or in the work place. Now my family of my two children and my wife are my reason to push on with hard work ethic. My biggest dream in life is to provide for them and give them the best life I could, so in current years, they are my absolute motivation for a great work ethic.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

My Name is AJ Dennison. I own and operate the Hat Sauce, and Long Island Waterjet. At the hat sauce we do custom patch hats, laser engraving, UV Printing, custom apparel, branding items etc and at Long Island Waterjet we do cnc Waterjet cutting of various metals, plastics, stone, glass etc. Long Island Waterjet was my father’s business that I bought him out of in January 2024. I worked for him for nearly 13 years every single day we worked together building the business to where it is today. We have always shared a passion for what we did together and when it became time for my dad to move onto retirement, I knew it was up to me to carry on his legacy in the industry and work hard everyday to keep building and grow the business to new heights. I strive to make my dad proud everyday while he has sat back to watch me take over the reigns to his business. When my dad came to me to tell me he was ready to retire I had just started The Hat Sauce and it was just starting to take off. I had a small shop across the street from the Waterjet shop where I went in to work at 3 am everyday to get through my orders before I went to my job working for my dad from 730-4. I did this for a year straight trying to get my business to take off. The single most thing that helped my business take off was the hours I put in to make it work, the contacts I made and my 2:30 am parking lot visits in the local 7-11. I would sit in the parking lot and watch all the work vehicles that would come in. I would take notes in a little notebook and I would go back to the shop, make samples hats of these logos and walk them into local businesses. That really set me apart. I made such good connections with other business owners and word began to spread and it began to spread fast. I quickly had to expand to make my orders happen. So once my dad retired; I saw an opportunity to move both businesses under one roof. I have 6000 square feet of which I occupy 4000 square feet for Long Island Waterjet, 1000 square feet for the hat sauce and 1000 square feet of warehouse space. In my year of bringing everything under one roof I have had to expand multiple times, adding state of the art equipment such as thunder lasers, a Mimaki UV Printer, three Hotronix Fusion 360 hat presses, and countless other items to make my business the best and the fastest it could possibly be. The newest part of the business is the UV printing. It adds a major additional source of income and opens many new doors for possibilities for both of my businesses. Moral of my story is work hard, be the best you that you can be every single day, focus during working hours on your business, focus on your family at all other times, and push hard every single day. The best advice I always tell people is to always talk about what you do as an entrepreneur because you never know who you are in the presence of. Some context of that is one of my biggest clients are the Blue Angels of the US navy. I make a ton of patch hats that they sell at their air shows all year long, all because I talked with someone who didn’t know what I did, and we hit it off and he helped me get my products in front of the right folks at the Navy, and I will forever be grateful for that !

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

My three top qualities for success have been, my ability to never accept no or failure, my work ethic and hours put in without a doubt and lastly was most definitely my communication and with that, my ability to learn from my family and everyday experiences to embark on my journey of self growth

Like I said earlier, the best way to build on these is to talk about what you do around other people. You never know who you are in the presence of that can help you in some kind of way. Always be open to accepting feedback for growth and advice. Whether you use it or not, always always always be open to it.

What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?

When I feel overwhelmed, hands down the first thing I do is call my wife. I call my wife and ask her to talk me off the ledge and I ask her to talk me through it and guide me to what she thinks is the best course of action. We may not always agree on every situation but it is so helpful to have someone that I can call that can talk it out with me. Sometimes I take a step back and say wow you are 100% right in the situation and this is exactly what we need to do, or I say I appreciate your view but I think I’m going to go in a different direction to make it work , but having her in my back pocket to talk these situations out with has been fundamental in my success

Some times you just need to take a step bs l and try to view your problem from the eyes of others and see if what you want to do or need to do is pheasible. I always push forward one way or another and make sure what I’m doing is best for myself, my business and my family

Contact Info:

• Website: Thehatsauce.com and longislandwaterjet.com
• Instagram: @thehatsauce and @liwaterjet
• Facebook: @thehatsauce
• Yelp: The Hat Sauce
• Other: TikTok is @thehatsauce