If the Shoe Fits: Making Money
by Miki SaxonA Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here
Craig and Randy Rubin are married entrepreneurs who built a $50 million, 130-employee company that was acquired in January by Nanotex.
20 years ago they saw a giant, although relatively mundane, need that you probably remember complaining about (assuming you’re old enough).
It was almost impossible to have a decorative fabric that would stand up to the abuse of people coming to a restaurant and spilling on it. What was used was a vinylized fabric that would crack and peel.
Craig knew textiles and had an inventive streak, so he set out to solve the problem.
They patented their space-age material, called it Crypton (more on the name in a moment) — and their first customer was McDonald’s.
Randy Rubin summed up successful entrepreneurship this way,
“If you want to become an entrepreneur, make sure you have something that fills a need or solves a problem. Someone will always pay for something if it brings value.”
Perhaps the reason so many Internet businesses are dependent on ads for all or most of their revenue is because it requires real value to charge for your product.
Image credit: HikingArtist
