What: Designer
and manufacturer of decorative urn covers
Who: Mary Hickey
and Bob Wheeler of the Renaissance Urn Co.
Where: San
Francisco
When: Started in
2002
It's not easy for most people to talk about death or
anything associated with it. But for Mary Hickey and Bob Wheeler,
co-founders of the Renaissance Urn Co., it's all in a day's
work. These tech-industry veterans design and manufacture unique
and modern urns and urn covers-aiming to personalize them and to
offer new options to grieving families and friends.
It was, in fact, when Wheeler's mother passed away that he
had a difficult time finding a suitable urn for her remains.
"I did not like any of the urns that I saw [at the
mortuary]," he says. "I didn't think they were
beautiful, and they were very uninspired. I'm a potter by
hobby, and I ended up making my mother's urn."
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He took the idea of creating unique urns to his good friend
Hickey and expanded it to include fabric urn covers. Since many
families do not buy urns because of the expense or because the urns
are unattractive, some people are forced to leave their loved
one's remains in impersonal plastic boxes. So Hickey and
Wheeler created urn covers as a low-cost alternative to traditional
urns. Hickey, 41, and Wheeler, 45, wanted to create urn covers that
are decorative while being respectful.
The biggest challenge, according to the pair, was learning about
the funeral industry. In the early stages, they learned everything
they could from independent funeral directors. "They really
took us under their wing," says Hickey.
Primarily selling wholesale to funeral directors, Renaissance
Urn Co. saw around $100,000 in sales for 2003.
Banking On It
What:
Developer and marketer of prepaid debit cards for people who
don't use traditional banks
Who: Roy and
Bertrand Sosa of NetSpend Corp.
Where: Austin,
Texas
When: Started in
1999
Without a credit card, it's nearly impossible to buy
merchandise online or even open a video-rental account. Brothers
Roy and Bertrand Sosa of NetSpend Corp. set out to change that by
developing a prepaid debit card for people who don't have bank
or credit card accounts.
Originally intended to enable teenagers with no credit to buy
online, Roy, 33, and Bertrand, 29, modified their plan to target
the Hispanic community-especially recent immigrants. "Part of
the reason we found this target [market] is convenience," says
Bertrand. "[Members of the Hispanic community are] looking for
ways to enhance their financial literacy."
A key in NetSpend's development was becoming a direct
processor and service provider of MasterCard to produce the prepaid
debit cards. MasterCard, looking for a way to reach out to the
Hispanic market, agreed to join forces with NetSpend, following Roy
and Bertrand's initial presentation. Now the cards are offered
at check-cashing facilities and grocery stores in ethnic
communities, and yearly sales are in the tens of millions.
All That Glitters
What: A
diamond jewelry company
Who: Ruta Fox of
Divine Diamonds Inc., maker of The Ah Ring
Where: New York
City
When: Started in
2001
Women who are available (a) and happy (h) are flocking to buy
The Ah Ring, a trademarked diamond pinky ring by Divine Diamonds
Inc. Conceived by Ruta Fox, a former freelance writer, this
11-diamond pinky ring with a white-gold band is the diamond ring a
woman buys for herself.
A longtime jewelry aficionado, Fox purchased a stylish diamond
ring to wear on her pinky. Her friends noticed-and asked her to get
rings for them. "I thought I'd take out some savings, get
some inventory, and try to sell just to some friends," she
says. When her initial inventory of 20 rings went fast, she knew
she was onto something.
Because of her media background, Fox, 44, knew promotion was key
to getting her company off the ground. She took a promotional kit
describing her product to the offices of Oprah Winfrey's
magazine, O, hoping to sell a few rings to the staff.
Instead, The Ah Ring garnered so much excitement that Winfrey
herself decided to include it in "The O List." "It
was wild," says Fox. "I had six weeks to go from being a
freelance writer to having a product ready to be launched by
Oprah."
The product, an affordable luxury retailing at $295, immediately
resonated with women of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds,
says Fox. With the ring available solely from her toll-free hotline
(800-310-9694), Fox's biggest problem was filling orders fast
enough. Today, she also takes orders on her Web site, and
she's added The Tranquility Cross (representing calm) and The
Snowflake Necklace (representing individuality) to her Divine
Diamonds brand.
With 2004 sales expected to approach $2 million, Fox knows she
has struck a chord with women. "I get letters from women
saying 'This is the first piece of really nice jewelry I've
bought myself,'" she says. "I really believe that
I'm changing the head space about [women saying] 'Oh, I
would never buy myself a diamond ring.'"
Happy Campers
What: An
online service that connects families to their children at
camp
Who: Ari Ackerman
of Bunk1.com
Where:
Chicago
When: Started in
1999
Happy memories from his childhood days at summer camp inspired
Ari Ackerman to come up with the idea for Bunk1.com. He originally
wrote the business plan for the company for his MBA training, but
it seemed like too good an idea to pass up.
His initial concept was to provide a Web service that parents
could use to watch their children's camp activities online,
with camp administrators posting photos for the parents to peruse.
Ackerman then added an e-mail service (called BunkNotes) and an
online newsletter service, as well as a search engine to help
parents find a camp for their kids.
At first, says Ackerman, 33, the camp directors were difficult
to persuade. "To sell them on this concept wasn't
easy," he says. But with his camp background, he knew the
market well. He knew parents would be willing to pay for this
convenient connection to their kids-and he was right. The first
camps he sold his service to got good response from parents
immediately-and the number of concerned phone calls from parents
(the "What's my child doing?" sort) to the camps
decreased, as moms and dads had tangible evidence that their babies
were alive and well.
Word-of-mouth started to build demand for the concept, and, to
date, the Bunk1.com service is offered to close to 2,000 camps
nationwide. Camp directors either purchase the service and include
it in the price of the camp or simply offer parents the option to
purchase Ackerman's Bunk1.com service a la carte.
Revenues are projected to reach more than $3 million for 2004,
and Ackerman has already expanded into two other Web
services-CampAlumni.com (a service to reconnect old summer camp
friends), which is already online, and EmailGrandparents.com (a
service that prints out and delivers e-mails from anyone to people
in assisted-living facilities), which is expected to be up and
running by June. For Ackerman, it's all about staying
connected.
On a Shoestring
What: A
provider of software and services to help people recover lost media
files on digital devices
Who: Korey
Bachelder of MediaRecover LLC
Where: Decorah,
Iowa
When: Started in
2001
Startup Cost:
$2,000
Korey Bachelder knows what it's like to lose a
once-in-a-lifetime family memory. He was on a family vacation,
snapping away with his digital camera, when he accidentally erased
all the files. At the time, he was a 21-year-old college student
with a background in computers, so he knew there were programs out
there to recover data in general. "I looked around and ended
up finding some software that recovered images," says
Bachelder, now 23. "I saw that no one was really marketing it
for digital cameras."
Struck by how necessary this service would be to
consumers-especially with the growing popularity of digital
cameras-Bachelder set up a service to recover people's lost
digital images. Says Bachelder, "I get to save people's
images-whether it's wedding photos or family reunion
[photos]." He used most of his $2,000 in startup capital to
purchase a computer and software. With his college apartment as
company headquarters, Bachelder used all the resources available to
him as a business management major at the University of Northern
Iowa. He ran ideas by professors and consulted many resources in
the university library. "Especially with a small budget, you
can't risk it on a lot of things," he says. "Bounce
ideas off of people in different fields and different
jobs."
Bachelder saved money by doing most of the work himself-from
marketing and PR to Web site development and ad design. Though he
initially sold software developed elsewhere, he soon created his
own program in-house.
Even today, he keeps overhead low by working out of his home
office and networking with independent contractors in a virtual
environment. His image-recovery software can be found on the
shelves of big-name retailers like Best Buy, CompUSA, Fry's
Electronics, Office Depot and OfficeMax; and his service is
available via the MediaRecover Web site. With 2004 sales projected to
reach $450,000, Bachelder reflects on his growth plan. "I grew
organically," he says. "I just used all the money from
sales and put it back into the business."