Young Millionaires They're young-they're hot-they're rich. Don't hate 'em . . . Join 'em.

In the sportswear industry, the rise and fall of companies often depends on seasonal trends. But Richard Allred is rejecting that notion by bringing the idea of timeless fashion into the equation. "It's really based on the classic surf clothing and lifestyle," says Allred of Toes on the Nose Corp., his Costa Mesa, California, company, which produces everything from board shorts and swimwear to bedding and towels. "We've got a look where a 5-year-old kid will wear the same print as his 80-year-old grandfather."

After graduating from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Allred found he was more inspired by his former classmates-who included Mossimo G. Giannulli of Mossimo Inc. and John Bernard of Spot Sport-than by his real-estate job. Gathering $110,000 from family and savings, he subleased space from Spot Sport and began to create the classic Hawaiian-print clothing he grew up with in San Diego. Today, his 7-year-old company is growing quickly-sales are expected to double from $5 million last year to $10 million this year.

Allred expects to slow down a bit in 2000 while he focuses on international markets and expanding throughout the United States. "The whole world's accessible to everyone now, and we're trying to take advantage of that," says Allred, who plans to expand into South America, as well as continue developing his markets in Australia, Canada, Great Britain and Japan. "Surfing in general is hot, and we've got a look the rest of the world really wants."

And though Toes is expanding into home linens and beginning to advertise in nonsurf magazines like Teen, don't expect Allred to lose sight of his original mission. "The way we've made ourselves different is by staying totally true to what we make. Our company doesn't look any different from when we started. We may have more items and offer more variety, but our look is exactly the same," says Allred. "It's like our image and game plan is to be like In 'N' Out Burger [a Southern California hamburger chain known for its simple but well-received menu]. You know exactly what you're going to get. If you want a hamburger, you go there. If people want a classic surf look, if they want the best Hawaiian prints, they come to Toes on the Nose."

Phil Shawe, 30, and Liz Elting, 33

Working out of a small, cramped dorm room may not be the mostcomfortable way to start a business, but that didn't stop PhilShawe and Liz Elting. With a rented computer, homemade brochuresand a bevy of resources at their fingertips, the two then-NYU gradstudents dreamed their 1992 start-up, TransPerfect TranslationsInc., would be among the largest service-oriented translationsfirms in the industry.

The partners spent virtually every waking hour promoting andmarketing or calling and mass-mailing to long lists of businessesand executives-efforts funded solely on their student budgets andan eventual $5,000 credit-card advance. "There was nodifference between living expenses, food expenses and businessexpenses," says Shawe. "We put as much as we could intothe business, then we paid the utilities, then the rent-only thendid we feed ourselves."

Within a few weeks, Shawe and Elting landed their first project andeventually started seeing repeat clients. Using contacts from atranslation company that Elting previously worked for, theyacquired a vast network of subcontracted professional translatorsand handled all their development, marketing and accountingfunctions from a couch in their desk-void dorm room. Four monthsinto the business, the mother of all projects arrived: a 600-pagemining feasibility study requiring Russian translation within ninedays. Knowing the project had to be done in-house and right away,Shawe and Elting somehow persuaded several Russian-speakinggeologists to fly to New York City and work right in their dormroom. "I don't think either one of us slept for eight ornine days," says Shawe. "Our room was like a casino fullof rousing Russian geologist translators. It was amazing!" Thetranslated study was on a plane half an hour before the client leftfor Russia.

Their company has been thriving ever since. Long gone are the dormdays: Today, this $15 million firm has 14 offices on threecontinents, a network of 3,300 subcontractors, and big-name clientslike American Express and Coca-Cola. The Stern Business Schoolgrads attribute their success to a blatant business philosophy:hard work.
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"We went right into business after college, so we were used toliving like students," says Shawe. "It would have beennice to have some money upfront, but I think learning to get bywithout excess helped us later on."

Adds Elting, "If we could do it all over again, we would do itthe same way."

Alexis Abramson, 32

While employed as director of a senior center, Alexis Abramsonencountered many seniors struggling with daily activities likeholding their playing cards, reading their crossword puzzles, evendialing their phones. Concluding that if the environment rightoutside her office wasn't senior-friendly, then society must beno different, Abramson, who has a master's degree ingerontology, left her job and went on a quest to find products thatwould facilitate seniors' everyday living. With $50,000 infamily contributions, she tracked down a multitude of distributorsscattered nationwide and launched www.maturemart.com in 1995, a gutsymove to make in a time before "e-commerce" was even aword and when Internet retail hadn't yet seen itsAmazon.coms.

"We didn't really have the resources to do any marketresearch," says Abramson. "So we just put [the products]on the Internet."

It worked. Offering more than 250 products, the site received40,000 hits in its first month. Today, Atlanta-based Mature MartInc. distributes through a variety of channels, including drugstores, catalogs and cable shopping networks, and expects 1999sales of $5 million. "I always felt I had to be an advocatefor seniors," says Abramson. "Now I'm turning mypassion into a profit."

Andrea Keating, 38

"I need either a 48-hour day, or the ability to function onone hour's sleep. I'm trying to figure out which would beeasier." For someone like Andrea Keating, who coordinates filmcrews throughout the world 24/7, that age-old entrepreneurialdilemma may yet see a solution.

Keating was working for a creative agency during the 1980srecession when clients began requesting local crews to lower costs.Her entrepreneurial light bulb went off. "What we [could do]was eliminate the unknown, the fear of who was going to show up onlocation," says Keating. Her Silver Spring, Maryland, company,Crews Control Corp., now represents 2,000 film and video crews,calling on them when clients need local crews for marketing,training or sales programs. The two-person crews-which all have 10years of experience and have been screened by Keating-pay a 15percent fee to Crews Control, and clients like CNN, Microsoft andNissan save money by hiring locally. This strategy has led to a 97percent client-retention rate, along with 1998 sales of $6 millionand an expected $10 million this year.

"We're available to our clients whenever they needus," says Keating, who began her company in 1988 with a$10,000 investment. "I think the only way you can earn clientloyalty is to give them everything-plus a little bitmore."

Brad Aronson, 28

Perhaps the best day for former em-ployees comes when they canfinally answer to the moniker "entrepreneur." But thesecond-best has to be when they answer to "industryexpert."

Brad Aronson, founder of i-frontier Corp., heard those sweet wordsearly on when a client suggested he write an article for anInternet-marketing newsletter. This led to an invitation to speakat a conference, where Aronson signed his first two large clients.Aronson, 28, now leads 30 employees in creating Internetadvertising for lucrative clients like The Discovery Channel,1-800-FLOWERS and SmithKline Beecham, and has co-authored a book,Advertising on the Internet (John Wiley & Sons).

"I learned it all myself. I bought every book [and] subscribedto every magazine," says Aronson who started his company in1996 with only a computer in his bedroom. "There weren't[many] people doing Internet advertising [then]. By actuallygetting my hands dirty and doing the work, we became theexperts."

In the brief off-time he has, Aronson volunteers with A BetterChance, a group home where students from inner cities can livewhile at-tending good public schools. "It's easy to spendthe time I'm not working thinking about the business,"says Aronson, who, as a host parent with his wife, Mia, spends timewith students on an individual basis. "Volunteering reminds methere are issues more important than the decisions that come withowning a business."

I-frontier made $8 million last year, and Aronson, who expects totop $20 million this year, has no plans of slowing down."We're considered one of the top Internet adagencies," he says, "and I want to make sure we stay ontop."

Walter Latham, 28

When Walter Latham says perseverance is his entrepreneurial ammo,there's nothing cliché about it. At 28, he's anentertainment mogul, heading the largest urban comedy promotioncompany in the country. But have you heard of LathamEnter-tainment, or its "Kings of Comedy" tour, whichgrossed $20 million last year? Probably not, due to sparse mediacoverage. Seasoned minority industry players say that's justhow it is. Latham retorts, "I only accept what I think Ideserve."

Don't assume Kings of Comedy has anything to do with Bob Hope.It's the laugh-fest that last year featured three AfricanAmerican stand-up comedians and ranked as the nation'sbestselling comedy tour, outdoing Jerry Seinfeld and Eddie Murphy.When Latham began planning it near the end of 1997 to follow up hissuccess with actor/comedian Chris Rock's "Bring ThePain" tour, he hoped it would propel his then-5-year-oldbusiness into greater fortune. When hope became reality, fewnoticed. "We'd call People magazine [forcoverage]," says Latham, "and they'd say'What's Kings of Comedy?'" Judging from thenumbers (expected company sales are $35 million this year, up from$26 million last year) and the addition of ABC's TheHughleys creator D.L. Hughley to 1999's Kings of Comedytour, the entertainment world cannot deny Latham the spotlight muchlonger.

The former customer-service representative for American Express wascaptivated by the successes of high school friends-turned-rapartists. When his own rap demo remained a demo, he tried abehind-the-scenes approach. "I don't think I knew the word'promote,'" says Latham. "I probably just said'I'll do rap shows.'"

Latham, who divides his time between his company's newestoffice in Los Angeles and its first, in Greensboro, North Carolina,has come a long way from scanning backs of CD cases for bookingcontacts. With just $5,000 from his family to start, Latham hastransformed himself from a small-time promoter into a multimediaplayer. Frankly, Latham has gone Hollywood: In the works is a TVseries animated by the creators of Rugrats. By reinvestingin his product to keep his tours fresh, focusing on the urbanmarket and keeping his independent spirit intact, Latham is readyto play David to Tinseltown's Goliaths. Says Latham,"I've paid my dues with concerts, and I'm willing todo it again. But I will not accept 'no' just becauseit's the standard."

Tarina Tarantino, 30 and Alfonso Campos, 30

When the entrepreneurial bug bit Tarina Tarantino, she'dalready made quite a name for herself while working at a cosmeticsstore in L.A.-and not just for her talents as a makeup artist. Thecreator of Los Angeles-based Tarina Tarantino Designs used to wearher bug-shaped jewelry and hair accessories to work-but she'dcome home bugless, having sold her bejeweled treasures to customerseager to decorate their hands and heads with her creations.

Turns out, retail stores and Hollywood costume designers were justas eager. "At the time, there were few hair accessories on themarket that were ornamental and pretty," says Tarantino, whoowns her company with her husband, Alfonso Campos. "There wassuch a void in the marketplace that when we showed these pieces tothe stores, they jumped on them."

Even now, Tarantino doesn't fret about competition. "Therearen't many designers that make high-quality, funky, funcostume jewelry," says Tarantino, who expects sales of $5million this year, up from last year's $1 million-plus. "Alot of them are trying to look real; we're not trying to dothat. Everything we make is whimsical and unusual."

That's not to say it's been a breeze for Tarantino andCampos. After starting in 1992, orders flooded in-more than theycould handle-and banks all but scoffed at their loan requests."We had $50,000 worth of orders, and we thought 'Wow! Thisis going to be it," says Campos. "They looked at us like'$50,000 is nothing, kids. Do you have anycollateral?'"

But all they had was $400 in the bank; a car, which they sold; andthe will to make their bugs fly. So they set up shop in theirliving room, worked around the clock to fill the orders, and setabout marketing themselves to Hollywood costume designers andmagazine editors.

For the editors, the fashion-conscious pair sent out silk pillowsbearing Tarantino's creations. And for the designers?"I'd set up appointments for them to see the line,"says Campos, who found designers by watching the credits of TVsitcoms. "They're busy and they don't have time foryou, so I'd tell them all I needed was one minute of theirtime, and it would be the best minute of their lives."

They'd all laugh, says Campos, but the laughter would quicklydie down when he'd open his jam-packed box of goodies and blindthem with all the colorful, Swarovski-crystal creations. "Itworked-they said this was the stuff they tried to get theirassistants to look for all the time," says Campos. "Therest is history."

Per Welinder, 36 and Tony Hawk, 31

Here's something you may know about Tony Hawk: At thisyear's X-Games, he executed the first-ever 900-degree trick tobe performed on a skateboard in com-petition. But here'ssome-thing you probably don't know: At the same time, he waspromoting his Huntington Beach, California, company, BirdhouseProjects Inc., one of the largest manufacturers of skateboards inthe world.

During the lull in skateboarding popularity in the early 1990s,Hawk and fellow pro skater Per Welinder began Birdhouse with$80,000 in combined savings. By growing their brand in specialtysports shops and through advertising and promotions with theBirdhouse skate team, Welinder and Hawk have built a skateboard,clothing and accessories company well-respected by their discerningcustomers.

"We really listen to our team because they're on the pulseof what's happening," says Hawk, who expects Birdhouse tobring in $12 million this year. "They're living it, andthey know what kids think is legitimate and what's not.Don't just hire some marketing agency that says they can do it,because I've seen that fail over and over again. They put someextreme slogan somewhere, and it just looks ridiculous. Kids arethe first ones to know it's contrived."

Dennis D'Alessio, 34

You have to start-up something after you graduate from theUniversity of Southern California in Los Angeles' entrepreneurprogram, right? But Dennis D'Alessio went for unchartedterritory, pursuing his idea for the Online Yellow Pages at a timewhen only techies touched the Internet and venture capitalistsweren't yet scouring the Silicon Valley.

"Nobody wanted to give us money," says D'Alessio. Soinstead he worked for a traditional Yellow Pages company to learnthe mechanics and later acquired its marine division, whichpublishes the United Yellow Pages Boating Directory, founding whatis now known as Superior Business Network Inc. in 1994. Three yearslater, D'Alessio's brain-child became a reality when theOnline Yellow Pages (www.sbn.com)went live.

The mammoth growth D'Alessio's Newport Beach, California,company is enjoying is the risk-taker's reward. With 50 millionbusinesses listed on sbn.com, 1,500 affiliates-from Amazon.com tovirtual unknowns-paying linkage commissions, and about 500 ISPsutilizing the site's user-friendly Yellow Pages,D'Alessio's $50,000 start-up is now seeing sales climb wellinto the millions.

Rosemary Jordano, 36

When Rosemary Jordano set about opening Boston-based ChildrenFirstInc. seven years ago, she knew she wasn't just trying to findclients; she was trying to sell a vision. She had no proof herconcept was viable-or even desirable.

Jordano's idea was to provide backup child care for childrenwhen a parent's regular child-care arrangements fell through soparents wouldn't be forced to take time off work. She hooked upwith companies that would offer the service to their employees; theemployees could then call on ChildrenFirst during, say, schoolholidays or when they needed to work on an irregular day.

"Up until that point, companies thought they could onlyprovide full-time child care [for their employees]," saysJordano, who started ChildrenFirst as a management company thatoversaw backup care centers before building her own. "But thatis so fraught with shortcomings and limited in the number offamilies it can serve. You end up with waiting lists and morepeople unserved than served."

The idea caught on. Companies started calling Jordano and gettingcreative with how they offered the service to employees, using itfor mothers returning from maternity leave, or for traveling orrelocating employees. ChildrenFirst, which grossed approximately$10 million last year, now works with almost 200 corporations and19,000 children and has a 99 percent client-retention rate.

To ensure quality service, Jordano maintains a challengingcurriculum and hires only professionals with bachelor's ormaster's degrees in early childhood or elementary education.That will help give her an edge as competitors surface in thefuture. "[Back-up child care] is the fastest-growing segmentof the child-care market, rapidly outpacing full-time childcare," says Jordano. "More and more companies are usingbackup instead of full-time care. We're the pioneers in thismarket segment and we're the only ones doing it nationally andexclusively."

More important, though, are the children and the companyphilosophy: that each child is unique, precious and unrepeat-able."The focus should always be on what puts the childfirst," says Jordano, who plans to add four more centers toher current tally of 20 in the coming months. "The people who[work] in our centers are totally committed to [doingthat]."

Mike Manclark, 35

It's pretty lucky when someone can turn a hobby they love intoa thriving business. And Mike Man-clark couldn't agree more.Manclark, who can tell you exactly what type of airplane is flyingoverhead without even looking, built Leading Edge Aviation ServicesInc. into an aircraft maintenance company that made $26 million insales last year out of his simple love of airplanes.

After studying to be an airline pilot for two years, Manclark addedbusiness school to his agenda in case his real goal didn't panout. But while he fueled and moved jets at Orange County,California's John Wayne Airport to earn a living, he realizedhe could go into business before graduation. Car detailing was atits peak, so Manclark, then 19, thought, 'Why not detailcorporate jets?' In 1984, he quit everything, borrowed $3,000from his dad and started Leading Edge, providing maintenance,interior recon-figu-rations, corrosion inspection, work on fuelcells and full repainting for aircrafts.
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Manclark, who sometimes spends Saturdays at his Santa Ana,California, office for pure enjoyment, hopes to grow LeadingEdge's worth to $100 million within the next four years byreinvesting into the company. "I don't do this for themoney," he says. "I do it for the love ofairplanes."

David Watkins, 31

Ask Webster's what "urban" means, andit'll tell you something like "of, or relating to, acity." Ask David Watkins, and you'll get a much differentanswer.

What makes Watkins different is his unrivaled perspective on theurban customer, the focus of his New York City advertising,marketing and event-production firm, Icon Lifestyle Marketing(ILM). As Watkins sees it, to be an urban customer is to be muchmore than just a part of the cit-it's to be young, hip, diverseand part of a cultural phenomenon-one that's propelled ILM wellbeyond the million-dollar mark.

"We think of urban customers in a much more sophisticatedfashion than most: We give them more credit for being able tocom-prehend things than the average advertising agency does,"says Watkins, who started ILM in 1995 after a three-year stint atThe Source magazine-a stint that gave him some insight onthe world of advertising and marketing: "I realized there wasno one who was addressing the urban consumer effectively,"says Watkins. "The things that were out there for youngAfrican American consumers, in particular, were really tired andboring."

So Watkins gave the industry a wake-up call, hiring a staff ofyoung employees who are always ready to get in the mainstreamtrenches. "To understand the market, you've got to havepeople in your office who live and breathe that market everyday," says Watkins. "Twenty or 30 years from now,we'll still have 19- and 20-year-olds on the staff."

That might explain why ILM hit $4.4 million in 1998 and is expectedto gross $10 million by year-end-not too shabby for a companylaunched from Watkins' basement. "I started this companywith $2 in my pocket and an idea," Watkins recalls."I'm glad we took that route, but it's been verycomplicated."
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Complications aside, Watkins doesn't need much more than hisconcept to make ILM work. Clients can virtually taste hisenthusiasm-and the profits just seem to follow. "It'simportant to have a passion for what you're doing,"Watkins advises. "Clients see it in your eye; they hear it inyour voice. If you don't have that passion, you'll never besuccessful. How are you going to sell it to anyone else if youcan't even sell it to yourself?"

John Jerit, 37

For John Jerit, success took a name change and some backbone. Whileworking for a fireworks company, Jerit and his partner bought andsold 3-D glasses called Laser Viewers. But he soon found they costtoo much and that "fireworks people" didn't like thename Laser Viewers. So, in 1990, with $85,000 in savings, heacquired his part-ner's half of the glasses business andstarted his Bartlett, Tennessee company, American Paper Optics,renaming his novelty items 3-D Fireworks Glasses.

Hawking his products carnie-style at fireworks shows, or havingchapters of organizations like Kiwanis International and the BoysClub of America do -it for a cut, required backbone. Upon decidingto expand his 3-D glasses business beyond the 3-D fireworks model,however, everything changed. Within a year, Jerit's $400,000sales goal was surpassed, and this year he's expecting $6million.

Each pair sells for pennies, but -when companies all over the worldpurchase from the 12-type assortment en masse (we're talking 20million units) for promotion and retailing, 3-D glasses seem a lotless kitschy.

Aside from meeting impossible deadlines on unbelievably largeorders from accounts like a KISS concert tour and NationalGeographic, success has come through marketing-at trade shows,through direct mail, on the Internet, you name it. "It'sabout staying in the public eye so when a big project is out there,you're considered for it," Jerit says. "If youdon't know about it, it means you haven't done yourhomework."

Contact Sources

American Paper Optics Inc., (800) 767-8427, http://www.3dglassesonline.com

Birdhouse Projects Inc., http://www.b-house.com

ChildrenFirst Inc., http://www.childrenfirst.com

Crews Control Corp., (800) 545-CREW, http://www.crews-control.com

Icon Lifestyle Marketing, 37 W. 17th St., #7W, New York, NY10011, (212) 929-3800

i-frontier Corp., (215) 755-2250, brad@i-frontier.com

Latham Entertainment, (310) 385-0300

Leading Edge Aviation Services Inc., fax: (714) 556-4023,mikem@leascorp.com

Mature Mart Inc., (404) 881-9816, alexis@maturemart.com

Tarina Tarantino Designs, (213) 694-1998, http://www.fashiondish.com

Toes on the Nose Corp., (714) 513-1500, http://www.toesonthenose.com

TransPerfect Translations Inc., (212) 689-5555, http://www.transperfect.com