Home Court Advantage Starting from home was the right move for these seven home-biz entrepreneurs. Now they're netting sales in the millions.

If you've ever thought homebased entrepreneurs werepart-time hobbyists with lightweight incomes, or that youngentrepreneurs were slackers unaccustomed to big-timeresponsibility, you're in for an eye-opener. These sevenentrepreneurs all started their multimillion-dollar businesses athome when they were under the age of 40. Whether they'reworking with Fortune 100 companies or getting their products placedon the pages of InStyle, these business owners are livingproof that you don't have to operate out of an impressivestorefront or be Donald Trump's age to make it in the bigleagues.

Marissa Shipman, 31

Company name: Shipman Associates
Location: San Francisco
2004 sales: $2 million
Description: Manufacturer of TheBalm line of cosmetics

Kitchen concoction: This TV-industry veteran didn'tknow anything about cosmetics when she decided to start creatingher own line of lip balm in her kitchen. But after meeting a womanin the cosmetics industry who was completely passionate about herjob, Shipman's spark was lit. She concocted lip-plumpingglosses with names like Berry My Treasure and Pepper My Mint in2000 and started pitching her product to stores in 2001.

Big names: It wasn't connections that got her foot inthe door, notes Shipman: "When I started, I didn't knowanybody in the cosmetics industry." It was good, old-fashionedpavement pounding that got her into major stores like Fred Segal,Henri Bendel and Sephora. Moreover, when stars like Cher purchasedthe product and TheBalm got a mention in InStyle magazine in2001 and Cosmopolitan magazine this year, Shipman'splace in the fashion and beauty lexicon was cemented.

Homegrown: "I love working from home," saysShipman, who is still homebased. But her home has had to change afew times as her business skyrocketed. "I started getting allthese black-and-blue marks" from running into all the boxes inher one-bedroom apartment, she says. At press time, she'doutgrown three apartments and was looking for a new home base forherself and her nine employees.

A family affair: Shipman has even recruited her family tohelp run the company-though they're all the way across thecountry. Both her dad, in Greenwich, Connecticut, and her sister inPhiladelphia work out of their homes to help build TheBalm brand.Says Shipman, "We're calling and e-mailingconstantly."

A call to action: Loving her business as she does,Shipman is full of encouragement for other entrepreneurs."People always have these great ideas, but they don't do[anything] with them," she says. "If you have somethingyou think could work, do it on a small scale andsee."--Nichole L. Torres

Joe Bushey, 30

Company name: POS World Inc.
Location: Atlanta
Estimated 2004 sales: $10.8 million
Description: Point-of-sale online retailer

You've got mail: This IT manager for a concessionsmanagement company loved working in the POS field, but was so burntout by the intense work hours that his doctor recommended a careerchange. One day, while reading a catalog with reseller pricing forreceipt printers, cash drawers, bar-code scanners and other POSitems, Bushey realized that not only was the markup outrageous, butalso that there was nowhere to purchase POS hardware online. Hisvision: to create an online marketplace offering fair pricing onthese items to the end user. "I wanted to be the Dell ofPOS," says Bushey.

Home economics: "I didn't have a dime tospare," says Bushey, who continued at his full-time job whilestarting POSWorld in 1999 in his off time at home. "It was a virtuallyno-cost startup." Early on, he focused on establishing vendorrelationships and developing a website. His brother Jim moved intohis apartment to handle website maintenance.

Image-conscious: One investment--a high-end Nortel phonesystem with voice mail--presented a professional image to callers,even though Bushey was handling calls for every department. Itseemed to work--in 2001, when the Los Alamos NationalLaboratory's hard drives containing sensitive material wentmissing, they contacted POS World for recommendations onitem-tracking technology. "I realized then we really had apresence," says Bushey, who moved to an office and hired hisfirst nonfamily employees in 2000.

Big business: Most customers do business throughPOSWorld.com, but they can also visit the office or call in.Customers include many Fortune 100 companies, the Federal ReserveBoard, Lockheed Martin and the U.S. court system. POS World isexpanding into auto ID, warehouse operations and the biomedicalfield, and will partner with Microsoft to sell retail-managementsoftware in combination with the company's hardware.--AprilY. Pennington

Sports Charms and Advertising

Jennifer Gonzales, 36, and John Gonzales, 33

Company name: Procharms Inc.
Location: Sacramento, California
Estimated 2004 sales: $2.5 million
Description: Sports charm wholesaler

Courting period: When Jennifer Gonzales' husband,John, gave her an Italian charm bracelet for Valentine's Day in2002, Jennifer--a huge Sacramento Kings fan--searched in vain for aKings charm before deciding to create one herself. Jennifer visitedthe Team Store at Arco Arena (home of the Kings) to ask aboutlicensing, and a helpful employee called Kings' co-owner GavinMaloof and let Jennifer leave a message. She was stunned whenMaloof returned her call and directed her to someone at Arco,eventually leading to a $7,000 order.

Sports nut: After talking to local jewelry-makers andsuppliers and doing many hours of online research, Jennifer found acompany that could manufacture the charms and was a licensee forMajor League Baseball, the NBA, NFL, NHL and professional playersassociations. Jennifer recruited her first rep--a charm-storebusiness owner--and collected a 20 percent deposit from interestedcharm retailers. The deposit, in addition to maxed-out creditcards, paid for ProCharms' first shipment.

Domestic charm: Jennifer and John set up a work space intheir living room and placed shelves on the wall for the charms."Everyone who knew us thought we were crazy," saysJennifer. But in addition to the advantage of keeping costs low,operating from home also allowed the mother of three to stay closeto her children throughout the workday, with the eventualassistance of a nanny. After four months, they moved into a smalloffice and began hiring employees. John handles ordering, inventoryand product development, while Jennifer oversees everything aspresident.

Team spirit: ProCharms now sells to charm retailers,e-tailers and approximately 20 professional sports teams/venues.The company has also done very well expanding into the collegiatesports market, counting 65 college bookstores as customers. Newproducts include a silver-toned, Tiffany-style heart bracelet; cellphone charms; and leather cuff bracelets, all with teamlogos.--A.Y.P.

Donnovan Andrews, 31, and Stephen Smyk, 35

Company name: Performance Bridge Advertising
Location: New York City
2004 sales: $5.2 million
Description: Full-service marketing and advertisingagency

The ad men: With a background in advertising, Andrews andSmyk were eager to start out on their own. Never underestimatingthe power of a phone call, Andrews called American ExpressPublishing to pitch their services in 2002--focusing on theironline marketing services. After being shuffled around a bit, hefinally hit the right contact and got a meeting. "Out of thatcame a strong relationship," says Andrews.

Cost connection: Keeping overhead down on their startupwas paramount. "Within the advertising industry, you neverknow--you can go from zero to hero overnight, and any agency can dothe reverse," says Andrews. "So we started out from homeand built slowly and were really conservative until we got to thepoint where we had excess capital." With their success,Andrews and Smyk were able to move into an office space four monthsafter they started and now have offices in Binghamton, New York,and New York City.

Home style: Allocating time to take care of personalbusiness and deal with professional responsibilities was key forthese entrepreneurs. "If you're [homebased], you have toprogram yourself so that once that alarm goes off in the morning,you'll allocate yourself a certain amount of time to maintainyour personal responsibilities, and then switch over completely toyour professional role," says Andrews. "The challenge isthat you're dabbling back and forth between your personal andprofessional life."

Human capital: Andrews had started a few nonprofitcompanies in the past, and both he and Smyk make charitable givinga priority. "If we build this company from Day One so[contributing to nonprofits] is part of our culture, and [view]everything we do as an organization in terms of giving back, as wegrow, the members of our company will grow with that." Aparticular pet cause is The TORCH (Together Our Resources Can Help)Program, an organization that helps underprivileged New YorkCity-area high school students find internships.--N.L.T.

Jeff Nodelman, 35

Company name: Noodlesoup Productions Inc.
Location: New York City
2004 sales: $4.2 million
Description: Animation studio

Disney days: After five successful years as an animatorfor The Walt Disney Company, Nodelman wanted to try other things. Ajob as an art director at an advertising firm followed, where healso got a year and a half of experience directing commercials. In2001, he branched out on his own. Says Nodelman, "I figured Iknew enough or was stupid enough to give it a shot."

Diverging interests: Knowing he could animate for ads, TVand film, Nodelman focused on marketing his skills as a goodstoryteller with ani-mation to crack all those markets. Thestrategy worked--Noodlesoup has produced animation for various media,including Cartoon Network's The Venture Brothers, aswell as for two Miramax films and the Broadway production of theTony-award winning musical Avenue Q. Cartoon shows forCartoon Network, Disney and Nickelodeon are in development, alongwith plans to create a comic book.

Drawing talent: In the early days, Nodelman wouldcommunicate with a network of animating freelancers mostly viae-mail and meetings at each other's homes in both New Jerseyand New York. The challenge, he found, was working with LosAngeles-based clients from his home, so he and his crew came upwith a way to e-mail and post smaller-size files of their work. Oneof their technical successes was creating a 60-second Flashanimation to send to a potential Los Angeles client--the whole filewas no bigger than a Word document. "The fact that we'renot in L.A. really shouldn't be that big of a deal, becausehere we are, sending stuff, and clients can see it quicker than ifwe were [there]," he says.

All or nothing: Nodelman mortgaged his house, sold hiscars and, he admits, "took out more credit cards than anyoneshould ever touch in his life." Thankfully, he, along with thefive animators he recruited from his Disney gig, scored two bigaccounts right off the bat--General Mills and Warner Bros.Entertainment.--N.L.T.