Bootstrapping A 100M+ E-Commerce Company: OpticsPlanet CEO Mark Levitin (Part 7)

Sramana: Are you basically using YouTube to provide commercials and information to your consumers?

Mark Levitin: Yes, that is essentially what we are doing. It is not about selling; it is about engaging. It is not the obnoxious infomercial that we all hate. It is more sophisticated. It helps build the brand and also establishes our relationship with the consumer. It also converts into business, although that is not the primary objective. That is not a very easy task and it is an expensive task, but it is a task that is important to us.

Sramana: How have you financed the growth of your company? You bootstrapped with some partners. How has it grown since then?

Mark Levitin: We are still privately owned. My co-founder is still running this business with me. We enjoy a great partnership. We use bank financing. We have no private equity financing. I won’t rule that out for the future, but so far we have been blessed to be able to work with partners who support our growth.

Sramana: In the early days of OpticsPlanet, what was your first banking relationship that you put in place? Those relationships are important for e-commerce companies.

Mark Levitin: A lot of traditional financial industries do not understand e-commerce. Yes, it is sexy and there is something cool about it, but when it comes to applying metrics in terms of what a banker is expecting to see, there can be some challenges. There are a lot of e-commerce models that do not make a lot of sense. They are fly-by-night businesses, but they are able to raise venture capital.

Yes, we are a technology company that develops software. The difference is that we stand with both feet on the ground. E-commerce is just a channel or venue, but in order to survive, a business needs to make sense.

Sramana: Which is another way of saying that it needs customers and revenues.

Mark Levitin: Yes. Customers and revenues that result in profit which is a gap in the case of a lot of e-commerce companies.

Sramana: At what point were you able to engage banks to give you a credit line?

Mark Levitin: From the very beginning. We were able to get a small credit line. We were willing to guarantee the companies obligations with personal assets. We worked with good people at the banks who understood our model. Our line grew over time. We had a $100,000 line which increased to a $200,000 line and then a $500,000 line.

Sramana: This is a great story. I love what you have done and what you are doing. It is commendable that you have built a $100 million company without outside funding. I look forward to your continued success.

Mark Levitin: Thank you.

This segment is part 7 in the series : Bootstrapping A 100M+ E-Commerce Company: OpticsPlanet CEO Mark Levitin
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