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The Savvy Ways this Bracelet Maker Stays One Step Ahead Joseph Ferlito anticipates potential future problems to ensure his company's success.

By Michelle Goodman

This story appears in the June 2016 issue of Start Up.

Trrtlz
Trrtlz CMO Michael DellaRocco and CEO Joseph Ferlito.

Entrepreneurship has a lot in common with chess. To win, you have to anticipate where you might get clobbered down the line. "It's staying a few steps ahead of everybody else, foreseeing what will happen and having the solution before the problem even occurs," says Joseph Ferlito, CEO of Trrtlz a bracelet company that boasts $65 million in sales.

Consider Trrtlz's approach to inventory. Conventional wisdom says not to order too much product when you're just getting started and instead to test the market with small batches of merchandise. But from the jump the Ferlitos increased their production exponentially to meet the growing consumer and retailer demands they expected.

"It was a very calculated risk," Joseph says. "But judging from our initial sales -- selling 20,000 bracelets in a week -- it made sense to think that those numbers would double quickly."

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