On 22 April 2012 the founder and MD, John Sollars, celebrates a decade of trading with a birthday party for his staff, suppliers and friends of the business.

John Sollars is a serial entrepreneur with three start-ups to his name over 30 years. “I set up Stinkyink.com knowing nothing about ecommerce and was almost bankrupted within months by a national ring of scamsters who defrauded me of £32,000 with stolen credit cards. The police could do nothing and I was at a low ebb. But I’m not a quitter – I discussed it with the dog and decided to carry on,” explains Sollars.

He continues, “The fraud issue really coloured the first four years of the business as it made it hard to get credit with suppliers as our balance sheet was so weak. It taught me the importance of having cash in the bank and watching my P&L like a hawk.”

However, the gamble paid off as within two years the company was in profit and today Stinkyink.com employs 14 staff and turned over more than £3 million last year. Sollars again: “I’m really proud of what we’ve achieved together over the years in a very competitive market; we all work hard to look after our customers and that has paid off with them staying loyal and recommending us. We’re looking forward to looking after their printer consumable needs for another 10 years and more.”

Local support
A believer in giving back to his community, Stinkyink.com gives financial support to the local junior cricket team, the Bridgnorth Dry Bar Trust (known as The Bridge), the County Air Ambulance and Alveley Church, as well as donating to national charities.

The company has been regularly among the top performing companies in Shropshire as winners and runners up in the Shropshire Chamber of Commerce Best Business competitions. It has also been recognised by both Investors in People (IIP) and also British Standards Institution (BSI) with ISO9001:2008.

Stinkyink.com Ten Years On

An interview with John Sollars, who set up Stinkyink.com a decade ago selling ink and toner cartridges for all makes and models of printers.

When did you set up the business and why?
John Sollars: “In the Spring of 2002 BBC 6 Music launched, coal mining ended in Scotland and the Queen Mother died. Another story that crept under the media radar was the launch of Stinkyink.com. It was a little while before I took my first order on 22 April, and boy did I cheer! An better still, he’s still a customer 10 years later.

“I decided to sell original manufacturers’ and compatible third party cartridges for every make and model of printer after having problems finding the right ink for my son’s machine. There’s a gap in the market I thought.”

Where did the name Stinkyink.com come from?
JS: “I had a brainstorm session with the family and everyone liked it. It’s memorable and smacks of schoolboy humour, so I thought ”why not”. In fact officially we are Solar Electronics Ltd, but we trade as Stinkyink.com.”

What did you do before?
JS: “This is my third business: the first was a small CB radio shop in Kidderminster which lasted a couple of years in the 80s; the second was an electronic sub assembly business which went bust in the last big recession (1992) costing me a load of money. It took 10 years to recover both emotionally and financially.”

How important is technology?
JS: “In the beginning I had absolutely no knowledge of how an internet business worked, just a burning desire to be in on the cutting edge! As ecommerce is the core technology I turned to some web experts who would hold my hand. I chose Teclan, the internet retail specialists who built my first website using Actinic’s desktop ecommerce software. That served us well for nine years but recently I decided to move to a bespoke platform using Ruby on Rails.

“Another key area for technology is our backoffice. It’s a high volume, low margin business so it’s vital to control costs. A couple of years ago sales were growing rapidly and we were struggling with manual, unintegrated warehousing, purchase order, accounting and order processing systems. EOS (electronic office supplier) software specialist, axisfirst, was able to streamline and automate the backoffice as well as give us an electronic data interchange (EDI) with our suppliers, real-time stock control and price feeds that have made a huge difference to our margins. Within a very short time the overall efficiency of the company increased by over 40%, net profit went up by over 20%, and as our turnover has increased our stock has decreased.”

What was the lowest point in your story?
JS: “Only months after launching the website WorldPay told me that most of my orders were fraudulent. I’d been targeted by a ring of fraudsters based not in Nigeria or Russia, but all over the UK. Worse, the police could do nothing to catch them or get my £32,000-worth of stock back.

“I was on the verge of bankruptcy and I remember sitting with my dog in the office when the full enormity of what had happened sunk in. I had to make a decision whether to bother going on, or to get out and go back to a ‘proper’ job. But I picked myself up, resolved not to trust anything or anyone in future and got on with it.”

How did you recover?
JS: “The fraud issue really coloured the first four years of the business as it made it hard to get credit with suppliers as our balance sheet was so weak. It taught me the importance of having cash in the bank and watching my P&L like a hawk – I can spend up to three hours every month reviewing it.

“I used email marketing and search optimisation to grow both my customer base and website traffic. Within two years the business was in profit and we haven’t looked back.”

And the best so far?
”I guess surviving this long is quite an achievement. The fact that I now employ 14 full-time and one part-time staff is a real landmark for me and turning over £3 million last year was a big moment as well.”

What are your critical success factors?
JS: “I’ve kept my head down and worked hard! Five things spring to mind that I’ve learnt over the years:

1. Manage your cashflow – it is critical to keeping tabs on the health of a business.
2. Understand profit and the difference between the two different types of profit. Know which lines yield the most.
3. Recruiting staff. Consider temporary and permanent, part- and full-time options. And don’t recruit until you have to, but take on the best you can afford when you do.
4. Using experts. It doesn’t pay to do everything in-house, and though outsourcing to experts may look expensive, you only need them in small doses and their advice is invaluable. Seek out independents for best value in your accountant, solicitor, PR consultant, IT support, etc.
5. Stay focused. I learnt the hard way that if you spot an opportunity, trial it rather than go in full belt.”

What would you have done differently?
”The biggest regret I have is not starting up three or four years earlier, when the internet was really in its infancy and the opportunity was there for global domination!”

What next?
“At the moment we are working flat out to increase our visitors numbers and also experimenting with ways to improve our website conversion rate. Both of these goals are long term, time-intensive processes, that sit alongside the overall objective of improving and growing the business.”

What advice do you have to ensure a start-up reaches its 10th birthday?
JS: “It’s different for everyone but these tactics have worked for me:

1. Stay single. If you start a business with a friend, you will fall out eventually. That’s my experience, anyway. When my first business failed the bank chased me for the total amount of the guarantees when my partner couldn’t pay his share. This was £40,000 and took 10 years to clear.

2. Plan ahead. Putting time and thought into a business plan and revisiting it regularly is worthwhile. Unless you have a target to aim for you won’t know when, or if, you’re succeeding.

3. Minimise your liabilities. Never take a charge on your house and try to avoid providing more information than a lender requires.

4. Do your accounts, get invoices out promptly and don’t accept being messed around over payment. Pay suppliers on time too – it gives you their goodwill and more credit

5. Monitor metrics. One of the many bonuses of the internet is that you are able to tell where your customer has come from; how they searched for you; how quickly they left and whether they actually bought anything from you. Using this information you are able to improve your website and also your customers’ satisfaction, which can only be a good thing.

6. Hire the right staff. It is impossible to place a value on a hard working employee that cares about your company and where it is heading. Spending the extra on wages for key skill sets or talents that are suited to your business can be the difference between a 5% growth and a 20% growth in a start-up’s early years.