Aggie entreprenuers work together to build success
A new online business based in Logan hopes to provide a free money-saving service for big returns.
Josh Taylor, 26, raised in Brigham City, was broke after losing money on his first entrepreneurial venture more than one year ago. He said the cleaning service he owned accrued about a $9,000 loss by the time he sold it.
Now working out of a two-room basement office in the old Morgan Library, he’s surrounded by fellow entrepreneurs and inspirational books like “Before You Quit Your Job” and things are starting to look up for Taylor.
He said after graduating from Utah State University in finance two years ago, he was faced with choosing between a regular job and starting his own business. With new ideas and a lot of hard work, Taylor and his father are now the co-owners of Ignite Marketing.
Think you’re unfamiliar with Ignite Marketing? The company is responsible for the flat screen TVs located around campus and in a number of businesses like Angie’s Restaurant. The company started with this targeted advertising, but is now expanding.
Ignite is now pioneering a distinct form of marketing where client businesses only pay for the results of the company’s efforts. Traditional advertising involves a company paying for a large amount of mailers, space in a newspaper or TV and radio airtime.
The cost is paid up front and results may be as low as a 1 percent return, according to Taylor.
Ignite has opened www.thebestlocaldeals.com to provide a more efficient link between consumers and businesses. Client businesses ranging from Cafe Sabor to Cache Valley Massage Therapy are already placing free coupons on the Web site and only pay for the amount of customers who print off the coupon and redeem it.
Businesses using Ignite’s new online service are mostly local, but Taylor’s three-year plan hopes their market will grow throughout all of Utah, Las Vegas and Phoenix.
“It’s no-risk advertising,” Taylor said. “You just pay for the results.”
Convincing local businesses of the fruition of the concept has been a big obstacle for the company. To prevent abuse of the system, consumers use a registered identification and can print the same coupon only once every 30 days.
The company earns about $3 per year for every registered user. There are currently 435 users.
They’ve raised approximately $25,000 from local investors, but with a small budget, the company faces a large obstacle in advertising their own name.
There is no performance-based marketing like theirs to get new clients and users. Instead, much of their time is spent soliciting new companies and thinking of ways to get new users. Typical costs for local advertisements absorb a great deal of their money. Look for an upcoming ad featured on the Aggie Shuttle service.
Emily Willis, a senior majoring in entrepreneurship, applied for an unpaid internship with Ignite using USU’s Career Services. Now she’s the main accountant for the fledgling company.
With such a small staff and a large amount of duties to get things off the ground, Willis finds herself doubling as a market research assistant and doing marketing tasks as well. She said at first she thought Taylor just didn’t want to pay them, but after going through the books, she said she realized there isn’t much left at the end of the month.
Taylor said the coupon Web site isn’t making enough money to take him out to lunch each month, but he plans on the Web site becoming profitable by this March. Working 60 to 70 hours each week for a small return can “kill your motivation some days,” said Taylor. But he gets a lot of encouragement from his family.
Employee Brandon Hunt, a junior in entrepreneurship, agrees.
“You have to have the right kind of wife to be an entrepreneur,” Hunt said.
Haley Steck, a sophomore studying business marketing, said the strength this untraditional internship adds to her resume outweighs the potential pay she could receive at another job right now.
“I get to learn,” Steck said. “Not just do slave work.”
Getting university credit for starting a company works well for Steck. Her boss once asked her to read a specific book on marketing but didn’t expect a written report from it. They had a small meeting instead.
There are a growing number of businesses adding coupons to the Web site and deals are always changing so students can expect something new when they revisit the site.
For Taylor, the results may not be what he wants right now, but he’s doing what he wants.
“There is a big difference between owning a job and owning a business,” Taylor said.
-jfullmer@cc.usu.edu