Your necessity can be a major drive to starting up a small business and opening up the door to success. Just ask A.J. Forsythe, the Founder and CEO of iCracked.
Indeed, iCracked was born out of a necessity. A.J. has this habit of breaking his iPhone screen, and finally fed up paying $200 for a new phone – after the 4th or 5th time he broke it.
A.J. thought that there’s gotta be an easier way to replace broken iPhone screen with the new one. As he is very good at fixing things, he decided to start tinkering with his iPhone.
So, he ordered some parts online and consulting with his electrical engineering buddies. 2-3 hours later he received the new screen and replaced the broken one. Fixed.
Things kicked off when 2 days later his roommate broke his phone and A.J. offered his newly found expertise to fix the phone. Then things go viral from words of mouth. A.J. started to take care of his friends’ broken phones.
From fixing a couple of broken phone a week, A.J. grows his business rapidly – now his company, iCracked, has over 350 locations nationwide and in 11 countries currently. – things are looking bright.
Lessons learned
There are some valuable lessons we can learn from A.J. and his iCracked, and those lessons can be adopted right away for your small business… here are a couple of them:
1. Uber important: Source materials directly from the suppliers
When margin is tight in a niche like mobile phone repair, your choice of suppliers is the key to your long term survivability. iCracked’s key to strong growth is due to the choice of suppliers. Initially buying phone screens from a reseller/intermediary, A.J. finally go to AliBaba.com to find the first hand suppliers of phone parts.
Anthony Martin, iCracked’s Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer (CSO), says that sites like AliBaba.com can help them discover premium parts, which is crucial in iCracked business model.
2. Want success? Just start a small business – just do it
A.J. offers a success tip which sounds typical but still not many do it: If you want a successful small business, just start it up – no matter how bad the idea is.
A.J. also adds that it’s better to start a company, and failed running it than only thinking about ideas and what-ifs.
If you want to learn more about iCracked, just go over to their website and read their interesting about page.
