A Few Wristbands, A Few Years, A Few Million Dollars

Mashnoon Ahmed, Mueen Akhter, and Aziz Mansoor are three young men who each put $2,000 into starting their company. They started selling customized silicone wristbands online in 2007 from a small garage. They have a great story with three steps, a few wristbands, a few years, a few million dollars. In 2012 they had annual gross sales of over $36,000,000. Their company, Netbrands Media Corporation, dba Imprint.com is also now the largest manufacturer of customized silicone wristbands in the world. They are also known as 24hourwristbands.com.

Together, these three young friends were the right combination. Aziz has a degree in Physics and Computer Science and worked at an electronic company as a network manager. Mueen has a degree in computer science and mathematics and worked with an oil company as a project manager. Mashnoon worked for various internet startups.

They did their research and found their competitors were outsourcing their orders to Chinese factories. This made their competitors unable to fill small customer orders or give quick turnarounds. They saw this as an opportunity and began importing blank merchandise to customize and ship to customers from their office in Houston. By the third year, the company had expanded into a 25,000 square-foot building with 70 employees.

In 2010, they acquired the name Imprint.com, and created a website with a network of unique online stores selling specialty products. In 2012, they purchased manufacturing materials with two SBA loans. This money was spent toward expanding their product line, increasing marketing efforts, and purchasing a 135,000 square-foot building. This was their fifth year of business, and Netbrands generated sales of about $3 million a month and had more than 300 employees.

My continued research for my book, One Million in the Bank in 3-7 Years, has greatly inspired me. I see so many people reaching their financial dreams in so many different tried-and true businesses. There are many different things we could all do to have a successful business, and here is yet another example.

The three partners have made it a goal to create as many assembly and manufacturing jobs in the U.S. as possible, helping to move them back from overseas. They understand the importance of giving back to the community and have a dedicated team that manages their community outreach efforts and sponsors at least one event a month. They are also sponsors for the Sugarland’s Legends Basketball league and event sponsors for Bangladesh Association Houston.

They have won awards, to include the 2013 Houston District Small Business Person of the Year. They are also the Texas Small Business Person of the Year recipients.

This is a business forged out of taking advantage of what the competition was not doing. They found this out by research. Many people tell me how they are starting a business, and some have already started. However, when I ask questions, they do not have a business plan and have not fully researched their competition at all. I personally feel this is why so many businesses fail. Learn about your competition, every one of them if you can, not just one or two. The more research you do the more you reduce your risk of failure and increase your chance of being like the three young men here, $36,000,000 annual sales in 5-6 years. You can do it too, start researching today!

E-mail me anytime with comments info@onemillioninthebank.com.

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