A "board meeting" at Laguna Beach, California-based
computer commodities trading company Arbitech is more
likely to include the Pacific Ocean and surfboards than a big table
and office chairs.
Co-founders Torin Pavia, 31, and William Poovey, 32, really know
how to have fun. Lunches for all 26 employees are catered every
day, the group often surfs together, and an annual corporate
retreat sends everyone off to lovely locales like Puerto Vallarta.
Arbitech has the opposite problem most businesses do: "I have
to call people and tell them to go home at my company," says
Pavia.
Pavia and Poovey also know how to get down to business. Arbitech
doubled its 2001 sales by hitting the $60 million mark last year.
They've come in at No. 2 on our Hot 100 list for the second
year in a row. They're shooting for $90 million this year and
are already well on track.
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Founded in 2000 with $500,000 from the founders' savings,
Arbitech is blazing its way as a less expensive alternative to big
computer products distributors such as Ingram Micro and Tech Data.
Most people don't think of computer memory being a commodity
like corn, but Arbitech does. "We take a securities and
commodities approach.
It's very much like Merrill Lynch or PaineWebber,"
explains Pavia. "Why reinvent the wheel?" Their sales
floor looks a lot like the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
This way of conducting business helps them offer computer products
at low prices to mostly small resellers across the country.
"We sell HP cheaper than HP sells HP," Pavia boasts.
Integrity is a way of life at Arbitech. Its marketplace has long
been tainted by used and counterfeit goods and shady businesses, a
fact that spurred the company's slogan: "Bringing
integrity to the channel." Judging by its growth and the
increasing number of small resellers that rely on the company as a
lifeline, Arbitech is doing just that. Looking ahead to the
company's healthy future, all we can say is, the surf is most
definitely up.
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