The main thing you have to take into consideration is; do i have the money to invest into this? pressing up albums, shirts or any kind of merchandise or merch cost money. you need to have money to make money. Once you have the money, getting bands to let you release their music is the next step. Without music, there would be no record labels, right? luckily in this style of music, MOST bands are very willing to let you release or re-release their music for little to no money at all. establishing connections in local music scenes and on the internet using social networking sites will greatly increase your chances of getting a hold of band members and people interested or related to the subculture you are targeting.
take your money you have saved up and find someone like myself that can put together layouts for the products you are pressing. printing up merch can be anywhere from an hour at the print shop to days of frustrating complications with no-brained halfwits that can't do their job, so my suggestion is that you have ALL the final touches on the product BEFORE you leave or send it off to the print shop. of course different things are going to take different shops and materials (i.e. you aren't going to get your 500 tape J-cards printed at the silk screening shop!) so planning ahead is KEY to success in starting your own record label.
After you have your nice new batch of goods, the next and (i feel) the MOST important key to your success is back to the social networking sites or finding other record labels to trade your merch with. we would all like to think that we could sell 1000 copies of the same thing, but isn't it more realistic to trade 10 of your whatever for say 5 of this cd and then 5 of this other one? the best way to successfully to use your critical think skills. ask yourself: is what i am trading for more valuable then what i am receiving? will these sell fast? how much should i REALISTICALLY trade for? how well known are the bands that i am getting? how good are the bands musically? is this music what you want to have represent your label? ect. after building up a decent catalog, you can move onto mass-trading and becoming a music distributor as well as a record label but unless you are seasoned in the field i would stick to small trades at first.
ADVERTISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Advertising is also another VERY crucial aspect of the business. Get out there and talk to people! make friends, connections, and anything and everything you can do to get your name out there!!!!! obtain a domain name or start a blogstop, start a facebook and twitter account for your label. i found that many distros and labels, as well as bands, use a site called bigcartel ( http://bigcartel.com/) to create there E-Shop. when setting up an E-Shop, a paypal account is pretty much essential, since nowadays MOST of your orders will come from the internet. something that i find very effective in selling your merch is to INCLUDE shipping prices in the cost BEFORE they check out! i would much rather pay 17 bucks for a shirt rather then think i was getting a shirt for 12 only to find that there a 5 dollar shipping fee when i check out.
Starting your own Record Label/Distro may at first seem like an overwhelming task but if you keep your eye on the prize, you most defiantly can do something great for the Underground, too.