Bootstrapping with a Paycheck from Indiana: One Click Ventures Co-Founder Angie Stocklin (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: The mode in which you’ve done this is actually very interesting. I find it quite fascinating. What else is interesting in the story?

Angie Stocklin: We tested our hand in drop-ship businesses.

Sramana Mitra: That’s a very important point.

Angie Stocklin: Even when we were still in our home, we tested drop-ship businesses. We thought it was a great way to grow without adding inventory. We didn’t have anymore room in our house. It was a process that didn’t work for us for a few reasons. The main reason was that we liked to be in control of the whole process.

Obviously, some of these bigger companies that use drop-ship have a lot of pull. As a really small business starting out, we had no pull. The margins were also a little bit of an issue. We found that the competition for some of these markets were really high because it was such an easy thing to do. It’s easy for anyone to do from their house.

Sramana Mitra: You basically returned to your original hypothesis that you did need to own the inventory and ship the inventory yourself.

Angie Stocklin: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: What about doing this out of your home? Did you eventually get an office?

Angie Stocklin: When I stopped working in 2007, we got an outside office.

Sramana Mitra: That included a warehouse.

Angie Stocklin: At that time, it was just an office space. It was an off-the-road retail location. It was what we found and could afford. We outgrew that pretty quickly and moved to a location with a warehouse. About four years ago, we moved to our current location which has a really nice warehouse and office space.

Sramana Mitra: Where are you now? What scale of a company are you? What kind of revenue level are you running at?

Angie Stocklin: We have decided not to share our absolute revenue numbers anymore. We’re in the multiple millions of dollars at this point in time. We have about 50 people right now.

Sramana Mitra: You’re all entirely in Indiana?

Angie Stocklin: Yes, one location.

Sramana Mitra: According to the screening that we’ve done, you’re above $5 million in revenue and we’ll leave it at that. Now, you have three major brands and you’ve basically brought in and divested 30 different brands and have settled on three particular brands. Are you going to be buying anything else or have you decided to focus on these three brands?

Angie Stocklin: We have decided to focus strictly on eyewear. It’s possible that we could add another brand in the future as long as it’s eyewear related but it’s not something that’s on the roadmap currently.

Sramana Mitra: It was nice talking to you.

This segment is part 7 in the series : Bootstrapping with a Paycheck from Indiana: One Click Ventures Co-Founder Angie Stocklin
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