Change Your Life: Launching a Million-Dollar Business
Anita Crook turned a simple idea into a thriving company
by Susan Crandell, The Aging Diva at Life Goes Strong
Six years ago, Anita Crook could not have imagined her life today, heading up a company with more than a million dollars a year in sales. In that short time, she's built a business that big without ever going into debt. Here's how she did it.
A Happy At-Home Wife Turns Entrepreneur
"In 2004, I was 58 and had a very nice life. My husband worked. I didn't. I thought it was a perfect arrangement. Our two sons were grown and gone," she says. "I had no intention of starting a business. But I have a hang-up; I don't like to hunt through my purse."
When her son gave her an expensive leather bag for Christmas, Crook was dismayed. "It was beautiful but it had no pockets to stow my essentials like keys and glasses and credit cards. It was just one big empty hole." She couldn't find an organizer to use with the purse so she designed one herself. A friend's daughter sewed the prototype and another acquaintance knew a manufacturer overseas. "The next thing I knew I had 2,000 Pouchees on the way from China," Crook says.
Learning How To Market and Sell
"I'm not a risk taker. The closer those Pouchees got to arriving, the more nervous I became. I'm not a sales person and I don't take rejection well. If I go into stores and they don't like them, I'll run out crying," she recalls. When the Pouchees arrived, Crook started visiting stores. To her amazement, every store ordered them.
Those first 2,000 Pouchees sold immediately. "Not being a risk taker, I ordered 5,000 more," Crook says. When she presented the business to an Atlanta-based rep firm that would market her organizers on a wider scale, she says, "I gave my presentation and I was so proud of myself. When I told them I had 5,000 in stock, their jaws hit the floor. 'That won't last a week,' they told me." They were right.
The business took off, growing 45% a year. Today, Pouchees are sold in 2,000 stores around the country, in Canada and across the world. Crook has four employees – a sales and marketing manager, an office manager, a bookkeeper and an assistant. Others have tried to copy the idea, but not with any success. "My design is patented and I have a pit bull attorney," Crook says.
Building a Business Without Borrowing
Crook sank $15,000 of her savings in the business at the start, but since then it's been pay-as-you-go. "In the beginning, I worked out of my home, shipped out of my garage and did everything myself. I opened a line of credit for emergencies but never used it. I had no overhead — just a computer, some software and boxes of Pouchees," Crook says. "When I hired an assistant, we worked side by side at the same desk. I don't mind spending, but I don't like wasting. Even today, you would not be impressed by my office. You would be impressed by my warehouse – that's a whole lot of Pouchees."
Crook says having no debt gives her freedom. "I don't have to answer to a bank. If the world stops buying Pouchees tomorrow, I'll sell off the inventory and go home. People tell me I should go on Shark Tank. But I don't want investors, I want to make my own decisions."
Running her business is a full-time job and then some. "My mother says 'I thought this was going to be a nice little hobby for you.' I tell her I did too," Crook says, laughing.
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