This is the first in our series of small business Success Stories that we will be featuring weekly leading up to the inaugural GrowSmallBiz Conference on Tuesday, September 29, in Washington, D.C.
Matthew Mandell, owner of DC Snacks, is a lifelong entrepreneur who started his first company at the age of thirteen. Today, his late-night delivery business serves up over 1000 snack and personal items to customers across northwest Washington, D.C. Since opening on the George Washington University campus in 2002 under the name CollegeSnacks, DC Snacks has relied on technology and online tools to expand the business into a city-wide service.
Earlier this year, the Small Business Success Index study found that the most “plugged-in” small businesses were more competitive and successful than small businesses that shied away from technology, particularly in the areas of marketing and innovation. Matt’s success with DC Snacks is evidence of his embracing Internet business solutions in order to build the customer base, streamline operations, and grow both the product line and the company’s marketing reach. Even though DC Snacks operates strictly within Washington, D.C., city limits, the business is driven by web-based tools like online ordering, inventory management, and search engine marketing, which Matt can manage remotely.
According to Matt, “I created this business with one goal in mind: to serve people in DC late at night, any way possible. While we have had some name changes from CollegeSnacks to CampusSnacks to DCSnacks, the one thing that hasn’t changed is our desire to keep everything focused on the customer. Starting with less than 100 products from Costco, me and three friends started knocking on dorm room doors late at night. Now we are in our third location, six times the original space, and send bike deliveries out across the city 7 nights a week. It has been a wild ride and DC Snacks continues to evolve as we are always looking to improve and do better each and every night.”
From the beginning, Matt has embraced technology for DC Snacks. “We only accept online orders – no phone calls – which allows us to automate the order processing and inventory management, and reduce overhead costs, but more importantly provides a wealth of transaction information. This gives me the ability to constantly analyze our product mix, evaluate which products are paying the bills and which are simply taking up space in the stock room, and manage my weekly orders with suppliers. Instead of just taking orders and reacting, I can be proactive about adding new products and partnering with other local small businesses, since I have a lot of insight into my customers and what they want. Using Google Analytics also lets me take a close look at how people are navigating through the site and where they are dropping out, so I can constantly improve the purchase process.”
“Since the delivery area is so condensed, my online marketing is really concentrated on hyper-local search engine optimization and marketing strategies. I use GoogleAdwords, but I am able to make it extremely targeted so that I get really high conversions rates with a minimal monthly spend.”
While DC Snacks continues to flourish, satisfying the late-night cravings of college students and young professionals around the city, Matt’s entrepreneurial wheels keep spinning. In 2008 Matt sold another of his small businesses, Store4Summer.com, to the Allied Van Lines franchisee. Today, in addition to working on his MBA part-time at GW, Matt is working on starting up another venture that will provide cleaning services in the city. He already owns the URL for that, and about a dozen other companies that are currently just ideas forming in his head.
Matt’s driving goal in all his entrepreneurial ventures is customer satisfaction: “My passion is putting the customer experience first and making people’s lives easier in simple ways. Once I come up with an idea that meets these goals, I can’t wait to run with it.”
Now tell us your story! As a small business owner, you put your heart and soul into your work, but that effort often goes largely unnoticed. This is your chance to tell everyone about your company and brag about what you have done to make it a success. We will be publishing one story each week leading up to the big event and giving the business owner a free ticket to the GrowSmartBiz Conference on Tuesday, September 29, in Washington, D.C. The next selection will take place on Monday, August 17.
Please submit all entries to growsmartbiz@networksolutions.com by Monday, September 21, 2009. All entries have a 500-word maximum and should include the challenges you have faced, especially given the recent economic downturn, and innovative ways you have overcome them. The earlier you submit an entry, the more opportunities you have to be chosen! All entrants not selected will receive a discounted admission to the GrowSmartBiz Conference.
Disclaimer: All winners will be informed by a Network Solutions representative prior to their story being published on the GrowSmartBiz Blog. Network Solutions is not responsible for the winners’ travel accommodations. If contest winners are unable to attend the GrowSmartBiz Conference for any reason, tickets are not redeemable for cash, merchandise, or any other item of value. In the event the winner cannot attend, ticket can be transferred to another party.
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I just came back from Network Solutions’ GrowSmartBiz conference, and it blew the top of my head off. I generally go to conferences because it’s good to take the occasional day to think 35,000-foot thoughts, but this was a brilliant combination of 35,000 feet and the runway – practical ideas on everything from making my business cards more effective to raising capital.
If you are a casual reader to this blog you have probably heard that on September 29, in Washington, DC, Network Solutions is hosting the Grow Smart Biz Conference.
