It wasn't that difficult because of the fact that we were virtual. The manufacturer handled the fulfillment. We did not have phone support back then. It was just answering emails, processing the orders and shipping them off.

 Shortly thereafter, the online business was incorporated with my handyman business. I then had some staff to assist with that. I transitioned that other business out and kept bringing in employees as necessary. We now have 5 employees.

We planned for the growth of the business. We intended to bring the business out of the house into its own space. It's always a stretch to sign a lease and to acquire the equipment and to do all that.

Our projections were such that we were still acting conservatively in what we did. We could go for a brand-new office, all new furniture and all that. Instead, I just moved the business about 200 feet from my house to a little storefront that was just across the street. It was like being at home because I have my computer at home, I could work at home if I wanted to, or I could walk to the office to see how things are doing there.

We've always taken very conservative steps. And we always leverage and maximize our equipment, our space, our people. My customer services reps were also loading and unloading trucks. We're designing the web site. We're handling the accounting. So I have everyone handling every skill and every job that needs to be done.

It was our excellent customer service. Plus, our great placement on the search engines.

One of the secrets that made our business a success is that everything -- from the people to the equipment -- have been leveraged beyond their initial capacity.

Take for example our order processing system. Instead of buying software, I converted the accounting system QuickBooks, which I used for my handyman business, into an order processing system. It was not perfect as there was a lot of manual work that needs to be done with it, but it kept things working nicely. It efficiently tracked our customers. We were able to watch inventory, and it ran smoothly.

But as we were expanding and our customer base was growing, we needed a multiple customer service software. It was more than our system could handle so we went looking for another system. Some systems went up to $50,000 to $70,000, but nonetheless needed regular maintenance.

We were able to find one for $6,000 that was an off-the-shelf product. There wasn't a smooth interface between this new system and the one we had, but we figured out a way to tie up the two systems together. Now, we have a very efficient, smooth running system. It helped that we've done it manually before so we knew what the parameters were and what we needed to do. So we could figure it out.

When we started dealing with other companies, such as the fulfillment company, they would brag about the half-a-million dollar system that they have put up; with 4 IT staff to maintain the system full time. It took them 6-8 months just to make that system working. Our very simple system, I would say to this day, works more efficiently than somebody's half-a-million dollar system that I see running.