Dear fellow entrepreneurs, business owners, customers, partners, and coworkers,
Ten years ago, ePackageSupply.com was founded by complete accident.
While exploring options for eLuxurySupply.com, one of our other businesses, a private equity hot shot asked me what had made us so successful. I answered with all I knew at the time. We worked hard, and we tried to be kind.
Important as that was, it was not an investable business model. We needed to define our “secret sauce” so we could improve, systemize, and scale it. Off I went in search of a more finite answer.
Before my venture into entrepreneurship, and after I got out of the U.S. Marine Corps, I worked in procurement for a large, public consumer packaged goods company. As a result, I had experienced the frustrations and inefficiencies in the packaging supply chain. I assumed it must be even worse for small and medium-sized businesses.
As part of trying to find out who and what we were, I called an old supplier contact and asked, “Send me something I can sell on the internet.” To which they replied, “Don’t waste your time. We spent almost seven figures and nearly a year of development on a website that no one uses.”
Two weeks and $5K later, we launched our own website, and we were in the packaging business. We named it ePackageSupply.com because the domain was available on GoDaddy for $9.00 and as a play on eLuxurySupply.com.
The goal wasn't to sell buckets, lids, containers, etc. The goal was to find out what made us different and whether we could replicate it. It turns out we did and that we could.
Over the last decade, we’ve built something far bigger than we ever imagined out of that experiment. But what did we actually find out?
Some of it was luck. Some of it was discipline; when we do the right things for the right reasons, the hard and complicated parts tend to get easier. We keep our costs and your prices as low as possible. We source domestically to maximize quality and minimize lead times. We prioritize value-added services like low required order quantities and product customization.
But the most important finding was the simplest. We built this on human relationships and business partnerships.
That's what we're most proud of. The coworkers, suppliers, partners, and customers who have trusted us, supported us, challenged us, and joined us in the adventure. It comes back to the mantra we started with…work hard and be kind!
Ten years from now, we don't know exactly what ePackageSupply will look like. The world changes too fast to pretend otherwise. But we hope one thing remains true: no matter how much we grow or evolve, we'll remember our roots, our core, and stay committed to doing things a little differently, even when it isn’t easy or popular.
What started as a one-off experiment became a wonderful company, and I thank you all for being part of the story.
Please let me know if I can ever help you in any way.
YNWA,
Paul
