Recycled Products exported from the US Turn Tiedemann into a wealthy dude

Ten years ago, Tony Tiedemann founded the company ABS Inc Clothing and Exports which every day takes in 120,000 pounds of used clothing for recycling. Some of this clothing is made into industrial rags, but most of it is sent overseas to resale shops in developing countries. This year, Tiedemann was named the SBA Small Business Exporter of the year for Arizona. His company packs the bales of clothing into gigantic shipping containers. The clothing is then exported to twenty countries. ABS has been helped by the declining dollar, since its products are cheaper for developing countries to now afford. Tiedemann has built his success by studying the management practices of former GE CEO Jack Welch, and by hiring dedicated people who are knowledgeable about the markets overseas. Additionally, he is constantly improving the way they do business. Projected revenue this year is $12 million, and the company employs 165 people worldwide.

Passing on Skills to Family members to grow their company

Perhaps next year instead of sending Christmas Cards I will send Christmas Candy Bars like they sell at Cerreta Chocolates. I know I'd love to receive one. Since the company is located in Arizona (downtown Glendale, to be exact), they have a variety of chocolates and candies using flavors and packaging representative of the southwest. Like yummy Camelback bars and Pecanero Butter Pecan Crisps. Jim Cerreta founded the company over thirty years ago after he learned the art of candy making from his father in Ohio. The family run company has guided factory tours twice a day during the week, and offers online tours as well. Four generations have now worked in the Cerreta Candy factory, and the company is thriving. What a legacy to pass on to your kids!

When one door closes another opens

This business seems so over the top to me but hey, different strokes for different folks. A guy named Andy Katz in Arizona was a home builder, but since the market has tanked here in AZ, he’s changed his business focus: building playhouses for kids. His company is called Childrens Customs. The first playhouse he made took him five weeks to make – it was a 225 square foot replica of a larger home. And it has air conditioning, running water, doorbell, hardwood floors, you name it. Get this – it was made for a child who hasn’t even been born yet. The price range for these playhouses varies quite a bit, but Katz says a playhouse in the range of $40,000-$50,000 is not out of line for someone with a million dollar home. Katz also makes air conditioned doghouses for any pampered pets out there. Since he’s just started this business, I’m not sure whether the company will be successful or not, but I thought the story was interesting at least.

Immigrant forms thriving candy business in Chicago

In my previous life I was a computer software consultant for a product called SAP. I got to work at a bunch of neat companies. One of the accounts at the company I worked for was Ferrara Pan. They make Red Hots and Lemonheads, Boston Baked Beans and Atomic Fireballs out of their facility in Chicago. The company was started by Salvatore Ferrara, who came to the US from Italy without speaking much English. However, he worked at becoming fluent in the language, and because he could also speak Italian, he became an interpreter between crews working on the Santa Fe Railroad. He worked there for four years before he decided to open a confection and pastry shop. Salvatore grew the business for the next eleven years, growing significantly throughout the Midwest. At that time Sal and his brothers-in-law formed a partnership and built the manufacturing facility that is on the site currently. These same families continue to run the business today, almost ninety years later.

Mother Daughter Daughter Team starts Successful Business

We have had several "party fouls" at our place. There’s a product called Wine Away which you spray onto your carpet or wherever you spill red wine. Miraculously the stain disappears upon application. I’ve bought several bottles of this stuff. I’ve used it for other stains besides red wine too, like strawberry smoothies. Whatever the potion is made of, it works surprisingly well. And interestingly, the company is a mother-daughter-daughter team out of Washington. The company was started in 1997 by Staci Wanichek. She ran it herself for two months, when she found the demand for her product was too great, she needed some help. Enter: Mom and Sister. Today, this product seems to be everywhere. It has had more endorsements than any other stain remover on the market. They’ve even been on QVC!

Business Startup on a Shoestring Budget

I love finding successful businesses which are started with very little money. If I were to start a business, that’s how I’d do it. There’s a fun store I have gone to in Nebraska called Eileen’s Colossal Cookies. Eileen took a cake decorating class so she could make birthday cakes for her two sons. She had seen a place in Omaha that sold decorated cookies, so she thought she would try the concept in Hastings Nebraska, where she lived. She began her business out of her home in 1982, posting ads in local newspapers and selling to convenience stores in the area. She offered free delivery of her cookies and delivered them dressed in a Cookie Monster costume. The concept became so popular a year and a half later she opened her first store. Four years later she opened another store in Grand Island Nebraska, and then four years later another in Kearney, Nebraska. Eileen has since franchised her store with 10 additional locations throughout the Midwest.

Fresh Idea in Packaging

I usually buy SoftSoap but since Costco was out of that brand, I thought I’d try the alternative soap they were offering, called Method. It came in a neat container that looked very different from the packaging of the other liquid soaps out there. Then last night I was watching tv and saw a commercial for the soap again. Method all of the sudden seems to be everywhere these days. So I thought I’d do a little research on the company. It was started in 2000 by two ex-roommates, Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry. Adam graduated from Stanford with a chemical engineering degree, and Eric is a self proclaimed style fanatic. Eric thought the other soaps on the market were in ugly packaging which people tended to store under the sink or away from view. Adam used his degree to create some sample products. After testing these products on the market, they found success and started recruiting people for their business. Today, Method is one of the fastest growing privately owned businesses in the country.

Exposed!

His name is the Naked Cowboy, and he is known for playing his guitar in Times Square wearing just his boots, briefs, cowboy hat and guitar. I saw this guy recently on TV because he’s suing M&Ms for trademark infringement. Apparently M&Ms used a picture of an M&M with this wardrobe in an ad and placed the ad in the Times Square, but forgot to ask the Cowboy. The guy’s name is Robert John Burck. He started his career in 1998, playing the guitar on Venice Beach. He wasn’t well received, so a friend suggested he play in his underwear. He took the advice, moved his locale to Times Square and has been extremely successful entertaining passersby with his music. He’s been featured on several television shows and sells a variety of shirts, DVDs, underwear. He’s also available for business and party appearances.

Quick Timeline for Success

I love the startup timeline for the company cafepress.com. In fact I love it so much I’m going to steal their viral marketing idea to get my webname out there. Yep. Sure am. The company allows others to sell what they create. The concept is similar to Etsy.com, really, but I like Cafepress better- refer to my post Artsy Fartsy for further insight. Anyway, the company was started in 1999 out of some guy’s garage in California. They had just four products to sell at the time, a mousepad, two mugs and a t-shirt. After they incorporated, they started an aggressive email campaign that went to a hundred websites per day. They had a 20% response rate from that campaign. Sounds good to me. A couple months later they received funding and they were off! They became profitable in March 2001. Today they have over 6.5 million members and over 150 million products for sale. Gotta go start my email campaign now. Bye.

Filming Talents

I’ve always felt that at some point in my life I have one good documentary in me to make. Time will tell for me, but Morgan Spurlock has already accomplished this feat. He graduated from New York University in 1993. He was a playwright and also created the show “I Bet you Will” for MTV. In 2004 he released a documentary called Super Size Me, which was nominated for an Academy Award the same year. An independent filmmaker, Spurlock came up with the concept for the movie on Thanksgiving one year at his parents’ house, after hearing a news story about some teenage girls who sued McDonald’s for their obesity. He invested $65,000 in the creation of the film. Apparently there were over 250 hours of video coverage made for the movie, and filming took about a month. Worldwide the film brought in over $29 million. He now has another movie coming out called Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?

Not your average van

Last week I did a story on Le Paw Spa and while I was researching them I came across another interesting company called Wag’n Tails. Dina Perry had heard about vans for mobile pet grooming in the Phoenix area, but she lived in St. Paul Minnesota. Her husband Chuck was very worried about the winter weather, and operating grooming vans during the seven cold months every year. Dina reasoned they could reach more people with vans than with a shop, so she convinced her husband to go along with buying two Dodge vans in 1976. During the mid-80s, the couple moved to Michigan, and the fleet of grooming vans grew to 22. They found there was a shortage of groomers and a plethora of dogs that needed to be groomed. Consequently, they opened the Michigan School of Canine Cosmetology. This school grew very quickly, and people were finding employment not only in their pet salons, but throughout the country. In 1996, they began converting vans into mobile grooming vehicles. By 2005, they had moved into a 24,000 sf building to produce these vehicles. Today, they have sold over a thousand mobile pet vehicles, and this sector of their business employs 23 people.

The Daddy of Domain names

When I developed this site, I paid an extra ten bucks to register my site name so it wouldn’t have a .blogspot.com after it. Turns out the site is registered with Go Daddy, who has a partnership with Blogger.com, so if you register the domain on Blogger it automatically connects everything. You’ve probably seen the ads on TV for Go Daddy, a domain registry company, they are always quite controversial. The company was founded by Bob Parsons. Bob performed terribly in grade school, barely passing in fifth grade. He doesn't think he would have graduated from high school if he didn't joined the military. However, he received a Purple Heart medal while in the US Marines, became a certified public accountant, and founded a company called Parsons Technology out of his basement in 1984. He sold the company ten years later to Intuit for $64 million. Three years later he founded another company Jomax Technologies with the money he made from the prior business. He later renamed the company Go Daddy. Today, Go Daddy is the #1 domain registrar in the world. A new domain name is registered or renewed by them every second of every day, they have over 5 million customers and employ almost two thousand people. The company is still privately owned.

Got Quotes?

My roommate in college spent every extra minute she had writing down quotes she heard from other people. She had pages and pages of stuff in her notebooks. In fact, she preferred to do this over attending classes. There’s a company called Quotable Cards that should hire her. I believe I first saw these cards in Santa Monica a few years ago, they left an impression. Today I was in Whole Foods and saw these cards and magnets there too. I literally could have spent hours reading all the cards, they are so insightful and interesting. The company was founded by Gillian Simon and Matt Vogel in 1993 after they graduated with degrees in art history (the class I personally got my lowest grade ever in school), and English. Their mission was to inspire as many people as possible. Guess they have accomplished this goal – their products are in hundreds of stores throughout the world.

Companies Roll out the Red Carpet

I used to live in L.A. and to me, this company epitomizes L.A. There’s a company called Lights, Camera, Interaction, which was started by David Wendell, a former TV producer. Wendell realized companies spend lots of money on corporate retreats and team building exercises. He thought instead of the usual cheesy team building exercises like running an obstacle course or going on a scavenger hunt, it would be more fun to film a faux commercial. Members split up into groups and write their own script, shoot and direct their own commercials. Wendell’s partner Sterling Lanier claims this is the most fun team building event there is. The company charges between $15,000 to $200,000 per three to four hour event, inclusive of a final screening and awards show. The business was started in 2001 on a shoestring budget of $2000, which they used to build a funky cool website and to advertise. Additionally, they worked out of Wendell’s apartment and hired freelancers to keep down costs. The company has stayed debt free. In 2007, they had revenues of $1.7 million and this year they are projecting sales of $2.5 million.

Attention to Detail

I think I was watching Bloomberg TV one Saturday night when Patrick O’Connell was on. He’s the chef and founder of the Inn at Little Washington. I’ve never been there but my favorite local chef Kevin Binkley worked with him, so the interview piqued my curiosity. The Inn at Little Washington is celebrating its thirtieth year this year, and has received Mobil’s Five Star Awards for both the restaurant and accommodations for the last fourteen years. Additionally, Patrick O’Connell has received the James Beard award for most outstanding chef in America in 2001. Patrick hasn’t had formal training as a chef, but he has been working in the kitchen since he was 15 years old. He had a catering business in 1972. He opened the restaurant with his former partner in 1978 in an old abandoned gas station in a town of 300 residents, 67 miles from Washington DC. The restaurant was immediately successful, aided by a glowing review in the Washington Star by John Rosson. Before John published the review, he warned Patrick he would need to hire someone to answer his phone because people would be swarming to the restaurant. He was right. Many articles have since been written, notably one by Craig Claiborne of The New York Times, who called it “the most magnificent inn I’ve ever seen, in this country or Europe, where I had the most fantastic meal of my life”. Note to self: I must go there before I die.

Best Salads in St. Paul

In the late 1940s, Dorothy Lynch and her hubby ran a restaurant inside the Legion Club in St. Paul, Nebraska. You’re probably thinking you’ve never heard of that town. I haven’t either and I’m from Nebraska. Anyway, they served Dorothy’s secret recipe dressing in this restaurant, and people liked it so much people came from miles away to fill jugs with this salad dressing. Years later in 1964, another company called Tasty-Toppings purchased the recipe and set up a production facility in Columbus, Nebraska (slightly larger town). Today they are so big they’ve moved to Duncan Nebraska and make the dressing out of a 64,000 square foot facility. The Dorothy Lynch dressing craze has caught on throughout the rest of the country, as it’s now sold in 26 states and hundreds of stores. I'm very excited about this, because Dorothy Lynch is one of my favorite dressings

Keeping Good Stuff out of Landfills

I have a Winnie-the-Pooh cake pan I’ve been meaning to sell on ebay, but I promised my sister I’d let her use it before I sell it. This weekend she told me to go ahead and sell it because she got one off the website http://www.freecycle.org/. This company was founded by Deron Beal. He worked at a non-profit organization in Tucson AZ, which provided recycling services and transitional jobs to people in need. Instead of throwing away items, the organization called other non-profits in the area to see whether they could use the items. Deron thought there must be a better way for people to give and get items others were throwing away. He announced the freecycle network on May 1, 2003 by sending an email to 30 of Deron’s friends, and a couple nonprofits and those people spread the word of how to give and get free stuff others can no longer use. His little project has spread to over 75 different countries, and is keeping over 300 tons of items out of the landfill each DAY, as the nonprofit company approaches its five year anniversary. And since it’s a non-profit, any donations made to the freecycle network are tax deductible. Genius.

Coming soon to a city near you

I’m not really an environmentalist, but since it’s Earth Day today, I thought I’d honor the occasion with some “green” business startup stories.
When I moved into our house I received a blue trashcan from the city of Scottsdale for recyclable waste. As a resident of the city and the planet Earth, I’m supposed to recycle (and do), but I’ve wondered how much money the city makes by recycling my waste. Today I heard about a company called Recycle Bank with a win win win proposition. They have rolled out a program that offers incentives up to $400 per year to people who recycle. The recycle bins given to consumers have a barcode on them, and the loaded bins are weighed before the “waste” is thrown into a truck. Recyclers are given coupons for shopping based on how much they recycle in a year. As a result of this program, recyclers are happy, the Earth is happy, and the company last year had $5 million in revenue. Hopefully this program will be rolled out my way soon.

Wine and Weddings

There’s a place in Nebraska not too far from where I grew up, called James Arthur Vineyards. They claim to be the largest winery in Nebraska. Apparently before Prohibition, wine grapes were prosperous in Nebraska. Who knew? James Arthur’s brother in law Jim Ballard did. When James Arthur Jeffers retired in 1987 from owning a company called Quality Pork International, he thought he’d take it easy for a while. He got bored though, so he purchased 20 acres of land northwest of Lincoln five years later. Ballard convinced Jeffers to plant some grapes. These grapes took three years to grow. In 1997, they corked their first bottle of wine. The vineyard produces 18 varieties of wine, which are sold in over 200 places in Nebraska. They also have weddings on the property nearly every week, and host a Renaissance Festival annually. Additionally, they host wine pairing classes, music performances, and Murder Mystery dinners. Lots of fun they all seem to be having in their “retirement”.

Need to shop please donate!

I can’t remember what city I was in, but there was a bum on the street with a sign that said “Why lie? Need money for Beer.” It seemed every car was giving that guy money. Along the same lines, I think Karyn of SaveKaryn.com did so well with her website in 2002 because she was incredibly brazen plus people thought her website was funny. She was $20,000 in debt from buying too many BCBG tops, Starbucks lattes and Gucci bags. What to do? Put up a website and ask individuals to donate a dollar a piece to get her out of debt. And donate they did. In fact, two million people hit her site within 20 weeks. They sent her all kinds of money via Paypal and snail mail. She was interviewed by Matt Lauer, People, and the New York Times. She did so well with her website she donated the rest of the money she made to charity. Today she has a book called 20 times a Lady.

Hard work and a nice cup of Joe

Joanne Shaw gave up everything she had to finance her startup coffee shop - her car, her house and her coffee service business. Begun in 1976, the Coffee Beanery charged 75 cents for a cup of coffee, and brought in revenues of about $100/day. Joanne's husband Julius was discouraged by this but Joanne told him to have patience, because people will come once word spreads how wonderful the coffee is. In the beginning Joanne was commuting two hours a day and working twelve hours without pay for a year before they showed any signs of profitability. Once profitable, Joanne and her hubby started looking around for other profitable locations and signed a ten year lease at an up and coming mall. They tried to get financing to open the new store. They were rejected five times but the sixth time was the charm, proving determination and hard work are major keys to success. Today they have around 160 franchises nationally and internationally. All this without a college education, either. However, Joanne remembers the words of the speaker at her high school graduation when he made the hundreds of people in her class stand up. He told them statistically only five of them would be successful, and only one would be a major success. Joanne was always determined to be one of the five.

A Truck and a lot of Bucks

In 1985 Mary Ellen Sheets found herself divorced and raising two teenage boys ages 13 and 16. The boys wanted to make some money so she put out an ad in the local paper for Two Men and a Truck for them to help people move. The boys weren't men yet but the phrase had a nice ring to it. She also made them a nice logo at her kitchen table with stick figures of two people sitting in the front of a truck, which the company still uses. The boys eventually went off to college, but customers kept calling. Mary Ellen decided she'd continue the local business, so she hired movers from Manpower for $10/hour. Three years into the biz, after only investing $350, she had five trucks on the road and was on the brink of making millions of dollars, after meeting with a teacher at a local college about franchising. Today they have franchises nationally and internationally.

What were those women thinking?

If you’ve ever been to Z Gallerie you may have seen the amazing products by Anne Taintor. She has a unique line of cards, magnets, books, flasks, etc., that include vintage pictures of women with a collage of humorous phrases. While at a yard sale in Maine, Anne was drawn to a stack of old magazine pictures of women from the fifties, wondering what they really were thinking when they were taking the photographs. Anne graduated from Harvard in 1977, had a career in cartography and played with the photos in her free time. As a single mom, she wanted to spend more time with her daughter so she decided to focus on her product line. She moved to a small town in northern New Mexico with 99 people, and now ships her products to over 2000 retailers throughout the world. I find her sense of humor to be absolutely hilarious.

Set Sail then explore

There is a couple in Wisconsin with a niche business of arranging land excursions for people on cruises. While cruises have offered land excursions for years, the company Shoretrips offers a cheaper, more genuine experience for passengers, apparently. The founders have been in the travel industry for years so they know the ins and outs of the areas they service. Customers mainly come to Shore Trips via travel agents, who are paid commissions for every person they book. Founders Barry and Julie Karp believe they currently have about 1.5% of the cruise ship tour business, so there is much room for expansion. The company is growing by leaps and bounds since they started in 2001. Last year they booked 100,000 passengers, and revenue was $7.5 million. They are currently offering excursions in the Carribean, Alaska, the Mediterranean, and the Baltic, among others. Sign me up!

Blooming buck$

If you know me and you’ve needed a pick me up sometime in the last ten years, chances are I’ve sent you a cookie bouquet from Blooming Cookies. The catalog I once found made everything look sooooo cute and I became hooked. They put cookies on sticks and house them in a flower (flour) pot. Ann King started the company in 1984. Prior to starting the company she was a flight attendant and had expectations of moving into the airline’s public relations department. Nine years into this career she resigned and sold everything she had to write a newsletter and book about traveling to hideaway destinations. This project was unprofitable, and as this was coming to an end, she watched a morning show where they highlighted a lady selling chocolate stemmed roses. She wanted to do this idea with cookies instead. She made a sample of her idea and showed them to a friend who worked in the purchasing department of Neiman Marcus (nice connection to have). Her friend liked the idea, so Ann borrowed $500 to get started. One customer asked if she could stick the cookies in a flower pot instead of a box and her motto became “Yes”. Another customer asked if she could write a name on the pot. Yes, she said, and her product eventually morphed into what it is today. Blooming Cookies now ships worldwide, Ann has been on Oprah, and they are doing very very well. Hmm, I think I will send a bouquet to someone right now...

It's Showtime!

There’s a community theater in a small town in Manley, Nebraska called The Lofte Theater. I haven’t been to it in about fifteen years but I really want to go back. It looks like a barn on the inside and out, and is kind of out in the middle of nowhere, between Lincoln and Omaha. When I was there last they didn’t have air conditioning so it got a little sticky at times. Personally I think that added to the cache of the place, but they have since added the AC feature. The Lofte Theater was started back in 1977 by a lady named Diane Reece. She was a English, Speech and Drama teacher at an elementary school when she discovered there was a lot of talent in the area. She dreamed of a place where people could gather to perform or watch local talents. She contacted a man named Howard Rathe, who owned a homestead and an 80 year old barn. That summer they “remodeled” the barn, added a stage, cleaned out the barn “grime” (can you imagine what that consisted of), borrowed folding chairs from a local funeral home, and added theater lights made of coffee cans and lightbulbs. The first show was Godspell and was a huge hit. Today they have over 11,000 audience members and are in their 31st year.

Green is the new Black

When I get my clothes back from the dry cleaner the first thing I do is rip off the plastic overlay and remove the crappy wire hangers they give me. On my next visit to the cleaners I try to give the hangers back to them so they can reuse them. Depending on who is working that day they may take them back. Otherwise the hangers end up in the landfill. In fact, 3.5 billion wire hangers end up in U.S. landfills every year. J.D. Shulman came up with an solution to this problem when his mom asked him to take out the garbage one day, and the wire dry cleaning hangers stuck out of the bag and gravy leaked out on to the white carpet. He was so annoyed, he thought there had to be a better way. So he designed biodegradable recyclable hangers called EcoHangers. He gives millions of them away to dry cleaners every year. How does he make money? He prints advertising on every hanger, costing him 4.5 cents per hanger, but companies are paying big bucks to place their ads on the hangers. The company says they are growing at 500% per year. In 2005 they allowed 1400 dry cleaners to participate, this year they are allowing participation to 14,500 stores. Brilliantness.

Trash or treasure

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Especially if the trash is made into a neat handbag. This morning in the Boston Globe there’s an article about a company that sells bags made out of recycled pop can pull tabs. The company was started four years ago, and has a cooperative with two Brazilian craft companies to make the bags. To date Escama Studio has sold about 70,000 bags that range in price from $39 to $240. Their website says they pay these Brazilian women more than the average Brazilian company to make the products, and additionally they give a 1% “rebate” of gross annual sales in 2008 back to the cooperatives. This money is used for supplying DSL connections and educational programming. So not only are they recycling products, they are helping the women of a distressed area of Brazil. Nifty.

Where to get your 80s t-shirts

When I was a kid I practically memorized the words to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I liked Dukes of Hazzard and played with Lite Brite. Anything 80s, basically, I liked. I have a kindred spirit in Kevin Stecko, who wore a He-Man t-shirt to an amusement park in 1999, the summer after he graduated from Penn State University. So many people asked him where he bought the t-shirt, he got the idea to sell it on the internet. His first shirt sold for $30 on ebay. Bullseye! He then founded the site 80stees.com. Since then, his shirts have been in several television shows. The product line has been expanded to include other pop culture shows like The Office and the Family Guy. While he hasn’t utilized his geo-environmental engineering degree, eight years into it, he has expanded the business to include 14 full time employees.

No way, they even sell Smurf t-shirts!

Time to be a kid

I was looking into Montessori schools for my daughter to attend next year and at one school in particular, I was told my child would know her multiplication and division by kindergarten. While that sounds impressive, I don’t think I want my child to know that stuff by kindergarten. Seems too early for that. Can’t she just play and learn how to interact with other kids? Apparently Barbara Kane feels the same as I do. She founded her company Hearthsong in 1983 with the idea that earlier is not necessarily better, instead childhood is a special time to learn basic skills. She was inspired by a news article on “superbabies” where parents are teaching their kids facts at younger and younger ages. She was having difficulty finding appropriate toys, so she founded her own company. Her first catalog was a black and white pencil drawing she sent out of her house. Today, they send out 19 million catalogs with their product offerings. They offer items for big kids like myself too, like cake pans in the shape of popsicles so you can have a cake on a stick.

What do bees make?

My sister used to love Burt’s Bees, she’s the one who introduced me to their products. The company was founded in 1984 by Roxanne Quimby and Burt Shavitz. Burt had a honey business and provided the beeswax for Roxanne to make candles. Here’s the timeline: They made $200 initially, selling their candles at a high school craft fair. By the end of their first year they had made $20,000. Five years later, they were up to 40 employees after a NY shop ordered hundreds of their products. Roxanne began to research how to make homemade personal care products after she found a 19th century book of recipes. They didn’t become incorporated until 1991. In 1993, Roxanne bought out Burt and she changed the focus of the company to mainly personal care products, including their most popular item lip balm. By 1998, sales were at $8 million. In 2004, Roxanne sold 80% of the company to a private equity firm, and by 2007 sales were over $250 million. Clorox is said to have bought Burt’s Bees at the end of 2007 for $925 million. Not too shabby.

No investors? No Problem

Genevieve Thiers was a college student in Boston when she saw a pregnant woman putting up flyers around campus to find a babysitter. Genevieve sent the pregnant woman home and distributed the flyers herself, then went back to her home and had an epiphany. If this lady needed a babysitter, probably many others do as well. Wouldn’t it be nice to have an online site where sitters and parents could find each other? She fell in love with the idea, and started talking with investors. However, none of the investors wanted to invest. So she bought the domain name sittercity.com and hired two friends to design her website in 2000. Then she distributed 20,000 flyers herself on campus. Before the site’s launch, she had 600 babysitters looking for jobs. Word spread from Boston to other cities within six months, and today sittercity serves over a half a million people nationwide. Aaah the power of the internet.

Cool shoes made in her basement

My cousin gave both of my girls shoes called Robeez. When friends saw their shoes they wanted to know where they could get some. We were trendsetters I thought. Seems Robeez are now everywhere. The company was started in 1994, when Sandra Wilson was laid off from her airline job. She wanted to spend more time with her 18-month old anyway, so she sewed him a pair of shoes and went to a local gift show trade exhibition to see whether others would be interested in buying them. That trade show brought her 15 retailers interested in selling her shoes. So she went to work in her basement, Robeez footwear headquarters, sewing as many shoes as she could. Sales were booming and she hired a sales rep a year later, and in 1997 Robeez shoes were online as well. Robeez outgrew Sandra’s basement in 1999 and they leased their first commercial space. In 2001, sales were $1.2 million Canadian, and today sales are over $15 million. They employ over 400 people and the shoes sell in 4500 stores worldwide. The company was purchased by Stride-Rite in September 2006. I think I'll buy a pair for my friend's newborn. Shhh! It's a surprise.

Pet spa on wheels

About once a week I see a van parked on my street hired by my neighbors for Mobile Pet Grooming. I haven’t paid much attention to the name of the one my neighbor uses, but a simple Google search for mobile pet grooming in Scottsdale yields a surplus of businesses. My favorite name is Le Paw Spa. They have a cute website too. Apparently they give your pet luxury baths in their van, in addition to the “necessary” things like warm air fluffed drying and deodorization of the ears. And my favorite- they even dispel the pet’s anal glands. Oy. I don't have a pet but if I did I'm pretty sure I'd pay whatever they want if that service was needed. I see in their coming soon section they will soon have Canine Massage Therapy. And all this takes place in their van. I love it that they come to your doorstep, makes for easy business startups and its probably way cheaper for them than having a commercial location too. Here’s a free idea for someone, though I want to hear from you if you use it – will someone please come up with a mobile people grooming? Why isn’t there such a thing yet? I would love to have someone come to my house and do my hair and paint my toenails. My daughters would like it too. Easier than dragging them kicking and screaming to a salon every month. We’ll be your first customers.

Amazing mail sends amazing mail!

As I drive to wherever I’m going I look at the businesses along the way and wonder how they are doing. I’ve seen one place a bazillion times but never paid much attention. Today I finally looked it up and found some interesting things about it. The place is called Amazingmail.com. In a nutshell, it’s an online direct mail company that allows you to create one postcard or hundreds of thousands. It was founded in 1998, and last year it ranked 2034 on the Inc5000’s list of fastest growing companies, with a growth rate of 175% over three years. They brought in 9.4 million in revenues last year alone. Maybe I should try them out to drum up some more publicity for http://www.winningstartups.com/. The bio page of their website tells the story of the CEO Steve Wilen – apparently he started a canning company from scratch in South Dakota and made $20 million in revenue the first year. Damn. That’s the company I want to find out more about.

Feed the pigs pay me money

On our honeymoon to New Zealand we had the option of staying on a family farm for a couple nights to learn how they shear the sheep and tend the animals and learn a little about their culture. Since I grew up on a farm in Nebraska, we passed, but I’ve always regretted the hotel option we chose. Since then, I have seen several instances of “agritourism” in the states. What a concept for the farm owner – people stay with you and pay to do your chores! And in the meantime, kids and adults learn the life of the farm, the peace and serenity of living removed from the buzz of the city. Seems to me like a much better experience than staying in a hotel room. The state of Oklahoma is onto this, they have a website with 400 places offering the experience.

26.2 miles and counting

I haven’t run a marathon yet for a myriad of reasons, first and foremost being I can barely run one mile let alone 26. Several years ago I was working in Los Angeles and a guy I worked with ran the San Diego Rock and Roll marathon. He wasn’t alone. Apparently the event was the largest inaugural running event in history. The founder of Elite Racing, Tim Murphy, has run four marathons and he felt the events of the past lacked spectator participation and community. So he developed the concept of a Rock and Roll marathon, with musicians at every mile. Amazing what that concept has done for tourism, the sport of running, and the economy in the cities in which the marathons take place. Today Elite Racing hosts events in the following cities: San Antonio, San Diego, Phoenix, Nashville, San Jose, Virginia Beach, Carlsbad, and Philadelphia. Over the last twelve years they have brought in hundreds of millions of dollars to the local economies and have raised millions for charities.

amo il loro gelato

When I was in Rome a few years ago I made it a point to go to every single gelato shop I possibly could. And gelato shops in Rome are as frequent as Walgreens is in America. Since that vacation I’ve noticed gelato shops are popping up everywhere in the US. There’s even gelato in the grocery stores. Doesn’t taste anything like the real stuff, in my opinion. Except for one place called That’s Amore in North Scottsdale. I’ve been there twice in the last three days. They have way more flavors than the 31 you get at Baskin Robbins. Sure, they have the standards like chocolate, vanilla and strawberry, but if you dare to be adventurous, they have others to try that remind you of Italy like Toblerone and Bacio, Mascarpone and Limoncello. In the shop there’s a mural of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence and the Leaning Tower of Pisa. And the owners come straight from Italy so they have a thick accent. The cups they serve the gelato in are like nothing you see in the States either. If anyone is in the Scottsdale area, put it on your list of places to go.

Doing Good part 2

I recently wrote about Greyston Bakery and my fascination with employing the “unemployable”. Today I learned about another organization on the west coast with a similar principle. The company is a non-profit called Homeboy Industries. They have several budding businesses, the first is a t-shirt silkscreening business. It employs 18 former gang members, in an effort to get them off the streets. The revenue generated, $1.1 million last year, goes to fund the rehabilitation efforts like housing assistance, mental therapy, job development counseling and tattoo removal. The company also employs 25 former gang members with Homeboy Bakery, a business hoping to produce millions of dollars in revenue in the next couple years. Additionally, Homegirl Café has a staff of 27 women impacted from gangs, and Homeboy maintenance makes about $6000/month. This corporation is the brainchild of Jesuit priest Father Boyle, in an effort to break the cycle of gangs and help them become contributing members to society. God Bless you, Father Boyle!

To be continued...

Owning a business is tough, so I thought it would be fun to follow an emerging business. Gigi Hill Bags was started when two moms Monica Hillman and Gabrielle Desantis-Cummings were on the sidelines at a soccer game talking about how their bags didn’t handle their needs. So they got to thinking about how they could design an inexpensive, well functioning bag that looked great. They experimented with samples for a year before launching the company in mid 2006. Starting out in their living room, they used $5000 from their savings and borrowed $23000 from relatives and friends. They are currently profitable with revenues of $85000, but they are looking to expand and need money to develop their business into a home sales party business similar to the Pampered Chef. Their goal is to have 200 salespeople nationwide by the end of the year. They estimate they need $200-300k to purchase a sales software program and develop a catalog. Check back in the future to see how they do.

Eat your vegetables

When I was little my Grandma used to tell me cottage cheese was ice cream. She’d put stuff like peas in sloppy joes too, to try to get me to eat healthily. Seems like Grandma was onto something. Nowadays there are cookbooks like Jessica Seinfeld’s Deceptively Delicious, where you can add healthy stuff to foods without altering the tastes too much. Even before her cookbook came out, Melissa and TJ Ewing had a company called Undercover Vegetables, and a product called the Yotta Bar. What a concept this is, assuming it tastes good. It’s a granola bar that has a full serving of veggies in it. They developed the product when they had a hard time getting their two year old son to eat veggies. Since it’s so rare for me to eat my vegetables either (other than the lettuce on my tostada at Taco Bell), I absolutely love this idea. Apparently others do too. They launched their product in the fall of 2005 and have been on QVC several times, and now also have their product in Whole Foods.

Clean paws clean yard

Every week I get a coupon book in the mail from Savvy Shopper. I got a chuckle today when I read the ad about a company called Clean Paw Pet waste removal. They will come to your house every other week and clean the pet poop off your yard for only $29/month.. And they even have autopay. They guarantee all dog poop will be removed from your property. i.e., they don’t just throw it in your trash can, they actually take it with them. I don’t have a pet but it sounds like a decent niche idea for a biz, if you’re willing to tell people you’re the human version of the pooper scooper. I'd hate to live next to the guy who only cleans up his dog poop twice a month though.

Time's tickin'

Andrea Lake was on Donald Trump’s the Apprentice TV show during season 5. She started stickerjunkie.com out of Santa Fe, NM in 2001, and had projected sales of $5 million in 2006. She says the secret to her success is time allocation. She puts a value on her time and if she can hire it out for less than that she does. Genius. The company allows customers to order small batches of stickers with anything they want written on them. I think I might get me one of them there stickers and have it say “I love www.winningstartups.com”.

Worked out of the garage

At one point in my life I thought it would be fun to design chair covers for parties. I still have the Chiavari chair in the garage to prove it. The idea was squelched when I discovered Wildflower Linens. You gotta check out their website to see how amazing these chairs look. Youngsong Martin used to be a fashion designer, but was having difficulty making money. In 2001 she closed her fashion business and started a service out of her garage renting haut couture table linens. She went to SCORE to get some help with her business idea. Now her designs are in tons of magazines and have even appeared in television shows like ABC’s Extreme Weddings. Additionally, her table fashions have been used for parties after the Academy awards and Grammys. Guess that visit to SCORE paid off.

The art of perfection

I discovered Ann Gish a while back when I was surfing on the net. Her story is one I can sort of relate to – the being paranoid part anyway. She started out as an interior designer, and decided to try her hand at designing placemats and napkins. She pitched her idea at the biggest showroom in downtown Los Angeles, called Mottura. They asked her for some samples, but she didn’t have any, so they asked her to come back the following day. She had kids and Halloween was around the corner, she told them, couldn’t come back till the following week. So she stayed up day and night for a week making the napkins and placemat samples. Once she brought the samples to Mottura, she became paranoid that the samples weren’t perfect. The first day she went back to make sure the placemats were straight. They were. The second day she went back again to make sure the napkins were straight. Of course they were. The third day she checked the showroom to make sure no one ripped off any of her products. Everything was there all right. Then orders came piling in – they wanted 144 of each of seven colors of placemats and napkins. From there the products took off and she now designs bedding as well. Today she's considered by many to be a leader in the industry. Everything came out like a bed of roses.

A Computer and an idea

I like to know whether anyone is listening to what I have to write about on my website. Interestingly (to me anyway), I was just reading about a guy named Ajay Goel. He’s a guy who started a website called JangoMail. It’s a product that allows you to track how successful your email campaigns are. The company was originally a side product Ajay created while living out of his parent’s house. The company began with a computer and no overhead, just a programmer – Ajay. However, there are now 4 members, working out of a 900 sf office in Dayton Ohio. I see on their website as of March 8, they are now integrated with Google Analytics. The company had projected sales of $5 million in 2007.

This ain't no cola

I’m so excited for this team of three guys who started their company back in 2000 for a hundred bucks. They talked a friend into giving them space on his ISP, purchased some business cards, quit their jobs at a gaming company, and founded PopCap games. Their original plan was to create the games and license them to sites like Yahoo, but in 2000 the advertising market wasn’t so hot, so they came up with a new plan. Now you can play a version of the game for free on sites like Yahoo, and those sites direct people to the Popcap site where you can try the game, download it and then purchase a full version of the game. They got a real office in 2002. In 2005 they were making more than $10 million/year. Now they nearly 200 employees and 35 different games. Not bad for a hundred dollar investment.

Makeup artist to the stars

Mary Beth York started out as a spa receptionist. She’s come a long way very quickly, as now she has her own makeup and beauty line. She’s done a phenomenal job of marketing her products to the masses, by getting her product in the hands of celebrities. This has also given her a following as she sells her product on HSN, her website, Rodeo Drive, and celebrity makeup artists. I’ve seen her on TV and she exudes enthusiasm and passion for her chosen field. Plus she has some really cool names for her products like "Paint by numbers" and "Beauty Ammo Kit". She was recently named one of the biggest movers and shakers of the Phoenix area. I don't know her but I know where she lives - just down the street from me! Maybe I could get her to give me a makeover....(stock photog above, her products are much cooler than this photo but it got your attention, right?)

Small ideas are the biggest

I’ve never met him but I feel like I have. Maybe I did meet him in a previous life. His name is Evan Williams. He grew up in the small Nebraska town of Clarks. I grew up in a small Nebraska town too, yet I’ve never heard of Clarks until I read about him. He went to the University of Nebraska Lincoln about the same time I did. He dropped out though, to start a few businesses. His most notable business at the time was a CD-ROM for Cornhuskers fans. He had a few other businesses too but they were so unsuccessful he took a web development job in California. Then he started a company called Pyra Labs with his now ex-girlfriend. Their goal was to develop and sell a project management software. To have some income while they were developing their software they did some contract work at HP. To keep track of their progress on the software he developed another software he called Stuff. He and his partner laughed that it was a better product than the other software he was developing. While his partner was on vacation in 2000, he put it online and called it blogger.com. The website took off by leaps and bounds and Evan sold this company to Google to make mega millions. There’s a lot more to the story and you can read about this genius here. The article also discusses his latest venture called Twitter, which will probably be worth billions soon too.