Living On The Edge

It was on the flight to meet Cherry Hill that Graham decided to call it quits. His credit cards were maxed out, and he didn't even have enough money on him to pay for a rental car. He wasn't sure how he was going to get to the meeting with his last potential client.

But when Graham disembarked, he quickly learned that Cherry Hill had arranged for a rental car to pick him up. What a stroke of luck, he thought, and his morale was boosted. But would they like what he had to say?

They did. "They asked me right there, during our meeting, if we could send one [of our systems] up there--and they would pay the cost to have it sent," says Graham. Cherry Hill wanted to test Express Digital's equipment at the local mall during the upcoming Easter season. Suddenly, Graham's instincts told him that everything would work out.

His instincts were right. This year, Cherry Hill pumped $2.5 million into Express Digital, which now has 32 employees. Overall, Express Digital's 1999 revenues hit $5.6 million, which is more than double what they made in 1998. And 2000 promises to be an even better year financially; Graham recently clinched a deal with Sony to jointly market a low-cost digital imaging system (priced under $13,000). And what's next? Who knows? Graham admits he and his crew may someday sell their business to their competitors, Kodak and Polaroid.

"They've always been our competitors," says Graham, nonplused. "I've just become numb to the fact that they're [out there]. I think it's almost easier for us that they're bigger. They can't react very fast, and when they make a decision, if it's a stupid decision, they can't recover from it for a while, so beating the big corporate giants isn't hard to do."

And Express Digital has beaten out their competitors in some high-profile places. More than 350 systems are currently installed in places like the Mall of America, the Grand Canyon, Guam's Underwater World Aquarium and Bermuda's Dolphin Quest. And Graham's list of triumphs goes on and on and on.

Not bad for a guy whose own camera only cost $300.

Contact Source

Express Digital Graphics Inc., (888) 584-0089, http://www.expressdigital.com

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This article was originally published in the December 1999 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Living On The Edge.