What:
Manufacturer of athletic headbands with a specially designed
stay-on strap
Who: Vincent E.
Norment, founder of DApparel Inc.
Where:
Lincolnwood, Illinois
When: Started in
early 2003
There's nothing like a headband soaked with sweat and
falling into your eyes to get you off your game. At least
that's what Vincent E. Norment thought as he watched a
professional basketball game. He saw the players struggling with
their athletic headbands and wondered if there was a better
way.
Norment, 42, believed a thick strap across the top of the
headband, made with the same superabsorbent material as the rest,
would not only absorb more of an athlete's sweat, but also stay
in place. With a background in sports-related products, he
approached headband manufacturers to drum up interest. "They
looked at the product and said it wouldn't work," he says.
"I didn't let that stop me."
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A patent search found nothing similar on the market, so Norment
immediately patented his idea for DBands under his DApparel Inc.
moniker. He'd been around the sports market long enough to know
that the key to success with an athletic-themed product is to get
it into the hands (or in this case, on the heads) of professional
athletes, so Norment promoted DBands during the three-point
shooting contest at the 2003 March Madness collegiate basketball
playoffs. After asking athletes for their opinions, he persuaded
one player to wear the headband on ESPN. Thanks to the exposure,
Norment landed endorsements from professional players-Ron Artest of
the Indiana Pacers and Brad Miller of the Sacramento Kings, to name
a few.
With the $9.99 to $14.99 product coming to sporting goods stores
like The Athlete's Foot and Foot Locker in spring 2005, Norment
expects to sell between 50,000 and 100,000 DBands by December 2005.
His ultimate goal is to make the DApparel brand a household
name-one head at a time.
Life in the Fast Lane
What: Used-car
shop specializing in online sales
Who: Kathy
Elliott of Virtual Auto Sales
Where:
Houston
When: Started in
2001
The perpetual drama of buying a good used car inspired Kathy
Elliott to create an easier process. While shopping for a used car
for herself in 2000, this aerobics instructor and personal trainer,
frustrated with the dearth of choices in her local area, decided to
look online for a car. Finding one in Chicago, a far trek from her
Texas home, she bought the car sight unseen and flew there to pick
it up, planning to drive it home. After finding that the car was
not in the pristine shape she was promised, Elliott, 38, resolved
to start her own, more accurate and efficient used-car shop.
Starting an online business made sense-it would allow Elliott to
sell to customers nationwide and take advantage of the growing use
of the internet for big-ticket purchases. Plus, she was sure many
people simply didn't have the time to search countless lots to
find that great, reliable car. "When I came up with the idea,
finding a car online was a novelty," Elliott says. "It
was just becoming popular."
Armed with her new passion, Elliott set about attending car
auctions and learning the business of auto sales. Today, customers
tell her the desired make, model, year, mileage and so on, and she
hunts for a match in her national auction database. When she finds
it, Elliott arranges for any repairs and ships the car to its new
owner. Her customers, she notes, are happy with the ease of the
process as well as the seven-day/700-mile guarantee on each car she
sells-and with sales of close to $1 million expected for 2004,
Elliott's pretty happy, too.
That's the Ticket!
What: Online
peer-to-peer ticket marketplace
Who: Eric Baker
and Jeff Fluhr of StubHub.com
Where: San
Francisco
When: Started in
2000
There'd be no more scalping if Eric Baker, 31, and Jeff
Fluhr, 30, got their way. These friends and business school alums
founded StubHub.com to bring ticket buyers and sellers together for
safe, reliable transactions. Tickets to a wide variety of events
are available, and anybody can use the site to sell their
tickets-from season-ticket holders to StubHub.com's partner
network of sporting teams like the Los Angeles Clippers, performing
artists, universities and more.
StubHub.com fills empty seats while collecting a healthy profit
by charging a 10 percent transaction fee to buyers and a 15 percent
fee to sellers. Selling tens of millions of dollars' worth of
tickets annually, StubHub.com has even created a ticket donation
system so average-Joe ticket sellers can donate the proceeds from
sales to charity. "People have always been trying to resell
tickets," says Baker. "When people [use StubHub.com],
they say, 'This is so great. I didn't even know this was
possible.' And once people use the service, they come
back."
Find your seats: StubHub.com co-founder Eric Baker makes buying
(or selling) tickets a snap for fans.
On a Shoestring
What:
New-media technology firm that specializes in the entertainment
industry
Who: Naveen Jain
of Sparkart
LLC
Where:
Emeryville, California
When: started in
1999
How much:
$5,000
Young music fans see the fruits of Naveen Jain's labor every
day. Founder of Sparkart LLC, this 24-year-old entrepreneur creates
websites and enhanced CDs-he has also created a solution to track
how many times music is played and shared among peers.
"We're helping record labels generate new revenue
streams," says Jain, who has built websites for such
well-known bands as Korn and Linkin Park, and done online promotion
work for Eminem and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Revolutionizing an industry wasn't Jain's primary goal
at startup-but getting a paying web design gig was, so he borrowed
gas money from his family to meet with a local company looking for
a web designer in 1999. This computer aficionado got the job and
spent the initial $5,000 he earned to build his business.
Jain saved money in his early days by working out of a bedroom
in his parents' home, using off-site independent contractors to
help him complete the work. Being a virtual company meant zero
overhead-he and his contractors even saved money on phone bills by
using e-mail and IM to communicate. Sparkart moved into office
space in 2001. Even then, it was shared space with another company,
and Jain purchased the necessary hardware at a greatly reduced cost
from eBay auctions.
It was this flexibility and make-it-happen mentality that helped
Jain get into his musical niche. After seeing Linkin Park perform
in their early days, Jain cold-called a band member's brother
and sold his website-building services as a way for the band to
communicate with fans. The strategy worked, and when Linkin Park
exploded, so did Sparkart's business. Today, with labels like
Epic Records and Maverick as clients, Jain expects 2004 sales to
exceed $3 million.