With gas prices soaring and war guns blazing, many Americans assume the U.S. economy is on the downswing, but for innovative entrepreneurs the American marketplace is booming with money making opportunities like never before. One successful entrepreneur shares his secrets for creating a booming start up venture in today’s highly competitive business environment.
With gas prices soaring and war guns blazing, many Americans assume the U.S. economy is on the downswing, but for innovative entrepreneurs the American marketplace is booming with money making opportunities like never before.
According to one successful entrepreneur, America’s technology driven society has opened up some incredible opportunities for the “little guy”. In particular, many Internet based companies have created new markets that never existed before the advent of the world wide web. Online phone companies, marketing services, gambling sites, business services, consumer services and niche retailers are booming on an international level.
“People are always complaining that the best money making ideas have already been taken, but I see all kinds of great things going on thanks to the Internet. I’m talking about new ventures and big changes happening right before our eyes. The place where the little guy can find great opportunities is on the Internet, both for researching potential ideas and for getting a shoe string business off the ground. It’s a great place to test new products and ideas, and it’s cheap and relatively easy to launch a business on the internet. All you need is a good idea and a great marketing plan,” says Wayne Perry, founder of SiCap Industries, a natural health supplement manufacturer that began as a home based web business.
The fast success of SiCap Industries is a prime example of how the web can pay off big when fueled by true entrepreneurial spirit. SiCap’s growth has been so rapid, the company has recently grabbed the attention of more than a few Wall Street visionaries looking to take the company to the next level.
Sicap Industries began less than three years ago in Perry’s kitchen. After suffering from chronic headaches and related sinus problems for most of his life, Wayne Perry discovered his own cure completely by accident. The solution turned out to be a natural extract made from hot peppers known as "Capsaicin".
Perry discovered this medicinal breakthrough during his stint as a television news reporter in Albany, New York. Perry had suffered from chronic headaches for most of his life, and then during a television news demonstration with real police pepper spray, he discovered his own natural remedy.
“Just before the demo, I started to get a nasty cluster headache. I couldn’t stop the demonstration so I let the other reporter spray me for the cameras. It dropped me to my knees immediately, but then I realized my headache was gone in seconds. I had been on lots of medications over the years, and nothing ever worked like hot peppers. So I started researching and experimenting and consulting doctors. It took a few years, but I was able to create an all natural formula that worked every time for headaches. Then we discovered the formula also worked for chronic sinus and allergy problems. I knew I had something big here, and I knew I had to start selling it right away, but I didn’t have any way to get into stores. So I started marketing on the web. That’s how Sinus Buster was first born,” says Perry.
Known as “world’s first hot pepper nasal spray,” Perry began making Sinus Buster in his kitchen in 2003. Within a month, he was selling 100 units weekly on ebay, and soon after he launched SiCap Industries with the official Sinus Buster website www.sinusbuster.com.
Thanks to a smart marketing campaign, SiCap sold nearly $250,000 worth of product during the first official year of operation. By the end of 2004, the company had moved from a small garage into a 4,000 square foot facility complete with a full service manufacturing lab and several pieces of automated equipment.
“That first year we were doing everything by hand, and it was tough. We could barely keep up with Internet sales, and we were getting Sinus Buster into new retailers almost daily. Sales were taking off fast and we literally had to learn how to run the business on the fly. The product led the way and we had to keep up with it,” says Perry.
Aside from having a “one of a kind” product, the key to SiCap’s success was smart marketing and solid reinvestment. During their first two years of operation, the company was putting every penny back into the business. Most of their fast notoriety came from Wayne’s ability to garner free media exposure, but the company also began spending modest amounts of cash on GOOGLE pay per click ads displaying over the world wide web.
“We’ve fought hard to stay ahead of our own success. Because we started with nothing, we needed virtually everything you could think of to run a business from the start. Everytime we got money, we upgraded our equipment and facilities, but we also invested in our employees. A company is only as good as its team. Today we offer full medical and dental benefits, and our base employee’s salaries have increased by 25 percent over the past two and half years, far beyond what you’d ordinarily see in larger corporations. Investing in key employees is as important as investing in key equipment. It all works together to feed the machine, but you also have to be careful not to let your investment outgrow your productivity and that’s something that’s tougher to control as a successful start up venture grows into a large corporation,” adds Perry.
In 2005 (Sicap’s second year in business), the company reported nearly $800,000 in total sales. Even with major expenses laid out for equipment and expansion, SiCap still managed to post a double-digit profit margin. According to corporate officials, the company has already logged $500,000 in sales for the first quarter of 2006, and the total year end forecast is expected to surpass the $2 million mark -- a 250% increase over the previous year.
“It’s amazes me how we just keep growing. We’re in over a thousand stores now and it looks like we’ll be landing some very big retailers this summer. We’ve got a big rollout planned for many of our new products into some of the largest chain retailers this year. We also expect to expand our facilities accordingly,” says Roberto Sasso, Director Of Operations for SiCap Industries.
With the expansive growth of their consumer retail division, one would think the company’s Internet sales would diminish, but SiCap’s president says the result has been exactly the opposite.
“We’ve found there’s plenty of room for both sides of the business. Our products sell fast in stores and of course we support those sales with national advertising, but our Internet business is also booming. The secret is using your website to support and work together with your retailers. We sell thousands our products every week on the web, but we sell even more through our retailers. On the web, we can offer new products not yet available in stores, and we can test market them. We can also promote our retailers and offer our products to people who may not live near any of those stores. We also have a huge international customer base on the web, and we use those funds to support all kinds of marketing projects here in the states. We’ve barely scratched the surface of what the Internet has to offer in conjunction with retail marketing. The money making opportunities out there are ripe for savvy entrepreneurs as long as they’re willing to do the work,” Perry explains.
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