Coming in July to Malvern, Pennsylvania: American Muscle’s First Ford Mustang Car Show

This is just a quick follow-up note in reference to yesterday’s post about Xoxide Inc., the Malvern, Pa.-based online retail company whose three owners were recently named by the U.S. Small Business Administration as the 2009 National Young Entrepreneurs of the Year. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, Xoxide (pronounced ex-oxide) operates eight separate website “stores,” with each store selling a different category of merchandise — everything from beauty supplies to fish tanks to computer cooling systems. One fact I neglected to mention, however, is that the company brings in approximately 85 percent of its total revenue through its AmericanMuscle.com site, which exclusively sells after-market parts and accesories for Ford Mustangs.

In an effort to promote that site even further, Xoxide will be hosting its first-ever Mustang Car Show on Sunday, July 19, 2009, from 11am-4pm. The event is scheduled to take place at Xoxide’s corporate headquarters in Malvern, Pa., which is about 30 miles from downtown Philadelphia, and very close to West Chester, the hometown of pro skateboarder and notorious MTV prankster, Bam Margera. (The location’s full street address: 7 Lee Blvd., Malvern, PA 19355.)

There are only 150 spots available at the upcoming car show, so if you think you might be interested in entering your own vehicle, visit the event’s website by clicking here, where you can register online for $10. You can also register over the phone by calling 800-768-8716. 

Incidentally, for those of you who aren’t particularly thrilled by the idea of hanging out in a parking lot full of pimped-out Mustangs all day long, it’s probably worth mentioning that the event will also consist of free food and drink; various prizes and freebies; activities for kids; an onsite showroom and store; and more. The event’s rain date, by the way, is scheduled for Sunday, August 2, 2009. Again, click here to visit the event’s official website.

Philadelphia-area Xoxide Inc. owners are the SBA’s 2009 National Young Entrepreneurs of the Year

> > > I recently wrote my first article for Keystone Edge, an online magazine based right here in Philadelphia. However, Keystone Edge actually covers the emerging economy throughout the entire state of Pennsylvania, as well as the creative (and quite often young) entrepreneurs who fuel that economy. It’s owned and operated by the Detroit-based Issue Media Group, an online publishing company with a fantastically smart business model, and about ten websites under its belt. One of those sites, by the way, is the exceptionally well-edited Pop City Media, which covers the emerging econony in Pittsburgh, and which I wrote for back in November 2007. Pop City Media also covered the release of Moon Handbooks Pittsburgh, the city guide I wrote for Avalon Travel Publishing, and which I’ll be updating sometime next year.

The Millionaire Boys Club: The story of Malvern, Pa.-based Xoxide is that rare tale of three high school computer whizzes making millions; it is a tale of computer shells, tachometers, blow driers, bird cages, and after-market Ford Mustang parts. [Link to Keystone Edge]

> > > For Keystone Edge, I wrote about the fascinating Xoxide Inc., an 80-employee company based in the Philly suburbs. (The company’s name, by the way, is pronounced ex-oxide.) From the outside looking in, Xoxide doesn’t necessarily come across as a particularly interesting organization. It’s basically an online retail company that sells a wide range of fairly standard products, such as beauty supplies, truck and car parts, and computer cases, from about eight different websites. 

But the company has an especially fascinating twist: It was launched about ten years ago by three teen-aged high school boys. Two of them, Chris Francy and Steve Voudouris, were both 17 years old at the time. The other founder, Andrew Voudouris (Steve’s brother), was 15 years old. The company cleared more than $1.1 million in 2002, which was its second year of operation. At the time, Xoxide was operating entirely out of the home where Steve and Andrew lived with their parents. The company’s inventory was stashed in nearly every room of the house, as well as in the backyard. The garage doubled as a workshop. And as the company continued to grow and grow, the three founders would go off to school in the morning while a half-dozen employees, most of them middle-aged men, would come to work at Steve and Andrew’s house during the day. The kitchen, of course, doubled as a break room.

Incredibly, Xoxide’s bottom line grew with each successive year. Its 2004 revenue was $5 million. Its 2007 revenue (brace yourself) was $19.1 million. Today, Andrew Voudouris is just 22 years old. Chris Francy and Steve Voudouris are both in their mid-20s. And yes, they eventually moved out of mom and dad’s house and into a 45,000 square-foot building with an attached warehouse. This year, during the U.S. Small Business Administration’s National Small Business Week (May 17-19, 2009), the three founders of Xoxide were named the 2009 National Young Entrepreneurs of the Year during an award ceremony in Washington, D.C.

> > > About the photography: Photographer Jeff Fusco shot all the photos accompanying my article on the Keystone Edge site, including the photo I’ve posted above, which shows the three Xoxide founders standing inside a truck that was in the process of being filled with some of their many products. Check out Jeff Fusco’s impressive photography portfolio on his website, www.JeffFusco.net. You’ll probably recognize at least a few of the fascinating characters there. (Some of Jeff’s clients include Philadelphia magazine; the New York Daily News; Getty Images; Philadelphia Weekly; and US Air.)

> > > As you’ve probably already guessed, Xoxide is a retail company that succeeds — in part — because it offers high-quality products at a reasonable price. It also ships those products very quickly, and for free. Naturally, a few of the various other reasons for the company’s success are a bit more complicated. To offer just one example, Xoxide seems to have somehow mastered the all but  impossible-to-master online game of search engine optimization (SEO), for one. But after brushing aside all the Byzantine matters of online sales and marketing, what’s left is a company that sells a helluva lotta good stuff, and gets it to your doorstep quickly. So with that sentiment in mind, if you’ve got an AmEx card that’s currently burning a hole in your wallet, here are seven of the Xoxide “stores” you might want to visit, presented in alphabetical order:

• AmericanMuscle.com (Car parts for Ford Mustangs)
• AmericanTrucks.com (After-market truck parts)
• AquariumGuys.com (For fish fiends)
• BirdGuys.com (For your feathered friends)
• CorvetteGuys.com (After-market Corvette parts)
• Misikko.com (Women’s beauty supplies)
• Xoxide.com (Computer supplies & gaming gear) 

Follow that story: Incidentally, Xoxide hasn’t enjoyed much attention from the press over the past decade or so of its existence. But winning the 2009 SBA Young Entrepreneur of the Year Champion Award has reversed that trend slightly. You can read what the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Mike Armstrong had to say about the company in a recent PhillyInc. column. Brian McCollough of the Daily Local News, a regional newspaper serving Pennsylvania’s Chester County, also covered the story. 

Music Note: On a somewhat unrelated note, Keystone Edge’s editor, John Davidson, heads up a fantastic Americana/roots music band called The New Time. Fans of very early American blues will absolutely love these guys, as will most fans of the modern alt-country/y’alternative sound, as documented in the late, great, and very much missed No Depression magazine. You can learn about The New Time and listen to some of its music at newtimemusic.com. Davidson has graciously posted MP3s on his MySpace page as well, which can be accessed at myspace.com/johndavidson. Enjoy.

 

Where I’ve Been

Young Pioneers Media:

>>> Good God it’s been a long time since I’ve managed to post anything new on these pages. Sorry about that! For those of you who might have wondered where I’d gotten off to, and what I’ve been up to, that explanation is simple enough: Instead of simply blogging about the unexpected fringes of the new creative entrepreneurship culture, I’ve been busying myself over the past few months with the process of putting together a print magazine that concerns itself with the very same topic. Interesting time to be launching a new magazine, right? I know.

Which is why I’ve also been working on putting together the pieces of an especially ambitious business plan that includes not just a single printed magazine, but rather an entire publishing, multimedia and merchandising company. In other words: I’ve got lots of unusually fun stuff in the works, business-wise.

Then again, I don’t have a lot of money, and I’m not particularly thrilled with the idea of taking on investors or getting myself deeper into debt than I already am. So it’s quite likely that Young Pioneers Media, as C. and I are calling this company, won’t exactly explode into existence, so to speak, but will rather seep its various products and services out into the market, slowly, until one day it seems nearly impossible to believe that, just a few years ago, it didn’t exist at all.

That’s the big plan, anyway. We’ll see how it actually all works out, of course, over the coming months. And like I mentioned above, our introductory product is going to be an actual print magazine. Or to be more specific, a professionally-designed, newsstand quality magazine about creative and alternative entrepreneurs, which will be published quarterly during its first year, and probably bi-monthly throughout its second year. As of now, the master plan includes going monthly by year three, if not somewhat sooner.

Johnny Cupcakes:

So. With all that said, I’m still not entirely sure just how much I actually want to reveal about the content of the premiere issue just yet. I will say, though, that we were lucky enough to convince none other than the incredibly successful T-shirt mogul Johnny Cupcakes to act as the magazine’s very first cover star. The entire process of working with Johnny, by the way, has been an incredibly fortuitous experience for me, especially because, as far as I can tell, Johnny’s brand seems to appeal to a number of different youth demographics, none of which I really have anything to do with: Hip-hop culture, skateboarding culture, etc. And that’s probably why I’d never heard of the guy before randomly stumbling across his boutique on Boston’s Newbury Street last summer.

I wrote a little bit about the pure joy of discovering the Johnny Cupcakes brand in a previous post, so I’ll restrain myself from going on and on about that experience here. If you continue scrolling to the very bottom of that post, you can read a bit about my last trip to Boston, where I had a chance to see Johnny give a brilliant lecture about entrepreneurship at an area college. The following day, I met up with Johnny and his photographer, Dave Green, at the company headquarters and warehouse in Weymouth, Mass. We ended up spending the better part of the afternoon shooting photos of Johnny, who posed with an enormous cupcake that had actually been baked the night before by a friend of the photographer. Check out the photo on the left, which is a great example of the work Dave did that afternoon.

Dave Green and Adoorable.org:

Incidentally, Dave also works as a freelancer, so if you happen to be based in or near the Boston area and you’re looking for a very capable and friendly photographer, I simply can’t recommend him highly enough. You can find his portfolio and contact information on his website, Adoorable.org. (Tell him Dan from YP Media sent you!)

One more thing: If you’re interested in learning more about exactly who else and what else we have planned for the first issue of the magazine, you’ll want to check back here every now and again, as I have plans to blog about some of the premiere issue’s brilliant entrepreneurial superstars over the next few weeks. And once we have a solid release date set in stone for the print edition of the magazine, I’ll undoubtedly be making a good bit of noise about that, right here. And for what it’s worth, I’ll also be doing my best to occasionally post updates about some of the other YP Media products that are currently in various stages of pre-production, including books, calendars, T-shirts, guidebooks, and other top-secret fun stuff.  So do stay tuned.