Virtual Entrepreneur

Yahoo!:
Have you heard the one about the 2 guys and a ferret? That’s not a joke, it’s a business plan. The 2 guys did over $7 million in sales in 2005. It all started in 1994. Scott Sanfilippo and Joe Palko were just out of college. They were also out of ferret food. You see, Scott and Joe had just become ferret owners, and finding food and supplies for their new pets wasn’t easy.

Well, necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention. And they soon had a mother of an idea. They launched a website, theFerretStore.com, which offered pet supplies and home delivery to other ferret owners. Keep in mind, this was 10 years ago – long before the Internet was popular and online shopping was mainstream.

The store was a great way for Joe (a UPS manager at the time) and Scott (an ISP sales engineer) to make a couple of extra bucks while they both continued their full-time jobs. A closet in Scott’s apartment became the ‘warehouse’, while Joe’s bedroom was the customer service ‘call center’.

In year one, theFerretStore.com did $10,000 in sales – not bad for something so specialized. In addition to the website, Scott and Joe printed up black-and-white ‘catalogs’ on an inkjet printer, mailed them to whomever they could find, and traveled around Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey selling their goods at ferret shows. The 2nd year, sales topped $100,000. They bought a house and moved the warehouse from the apartment closet to a basement and garage. They filled orders there for about 6 months, until they outgrew that as well.

In 1999, the 2 quit their jobs to devote themselves full time to their burgeoning venture. They were ready to expand their company, Neeps, Inc., beyond ferrets. So they worked with Yahoo! Merchant Solutions to create additional specialty pet web sites, including ActiveK9.com, theKittyStore.com, RabbitCentral.com, AnimalCages.com, and PetCareCentral.com.

Neeps – an acronym borrowed from the company’s 1st name, Northeast Exotic Pet Supply – continued to grow over the years, and the company is now in its own 20,000-square-foot distribution center with an in-house call center. Along the way, Scott and Joe spun off a web design and Internet marketing company called Solid Cactus. In 2005, combined revenues topped $7 million. This past February, Neeps launched its 13th web store, BuyDingo.com.

It may be a long way from the apartment closet, but Scott and Joe never forget their roots. When Scott saw a recent order from their 1st customer ever, he was thrilled. ‘That’s a testament to our company.’

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