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Online shopping success

Simi Valley business went from bedroom to boardrooms

By Stephanie Hoops

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Kevin Sproles was a 16-year-old student at Royal High School in Simi Valley when he started building custom websites in his bedroom and created Volusion Inc. in 1999.

Today, the 27-year-old is CEO of the multimillion-dollar business.

“I used my allowance money and all I needed was a computer and my time,” he said. “The only other expense was to advertise, and this was pre-Google days, so it was just a couple cents to get visitors to your website, so I was lucky.”

Sproles graduated from high school in 2001, but rather than going to college, he chose to invest all of his time in Volusion.

No one in Sproles’ family was in the computer business, but he was inspired by the work ethic of his grandfather, who owned a furniture store, and his father, who runs a concrete pumping operation.

“I learned I have to work hard 24/7,” he said of running your own business. “It’s not a job where you can go home at the end of the day. It’s a part of you.”

His original concept of building one website at a time wasn’t feasible, however, and Sproles eventually realized he’d do better if he designed software he could resell thousands of times. His idea: software that would enable websites to have shopping carts.

With no investors, he used credit cards to fund the company’s growth.

“For some reason, I got a $10,000 credit card given to me even though I was a kid,” he said. “That helped a lot. I ended up $30,000 in debt, but the company was growing, and I knew I was going to pay that off, and sure enough I did.”

Eventually he hired four employees, and they all worked out of his bedroom. It got cramped, so they moved into his brother’s bedroom before finding real office space in Simi Valley.

Sproles and one of his clients, Clay Olivier, teamed up in 2004 after discussing ways to build the business. Olivier invested in the company and purchased 20 percent of it, then took on sales and marketing responsibilities in a second office he opened in Austin, Texas.

The software provides a fully integrated online store with a shopping cart, built-in inventory management and marketing tools, multiple design templates, and the ability to securely process credit card orders and print shipping labels. It also integrates with the popular QuickBooks accounting software.

Today, Volusion has more than 150 employees divided equally between the two offices in Simi Valley and Austin. Its 2009 revenues were $22.4 million, up nearly 43 percent from 2008, having grown steadily since 2006.

Its clients include National Geographic and Disney.

Chicago-based Panna Dolce launched its online bakery in 2009. Co-owner Justin Greis said he looked at other shopping-cart software but chose Volusion’s system because it didn’t require a lot of technical skill to maintain.

“What it enables us to do is really focus on running the business as opposed to maintaining a website,” he said.

The price was also attractive, Greis said.

“Our products start at $24.99 a month and there’s no contract, so it’s just month to month,” Sproles said. “The most popular plan is $99 a month, and really everybody gets pretty much all the features of the software and benefits.

“The difference between the plans is the number of products you have. Some people have a small inventory and small catalog. Others have 100,000 products.”

Volusion’s software now powers about 20,000 online stores.

Last year, it processed more than $2 billion worth of online sales, accounting for 1 percent of all U.S. Internet transactions, Sproles said.

It took six years of hard work before Sproles could finally take weekends off, he said. As his income rose, one of the luxuries he allowed himself was a Lamborghini.

He recently bought a home in Newbury Park and got engaged a few weeks ago.

On the Net:

http://www.volusion.com