Past Winner Stories
Global Plastics
www.globalplastics.us
The uncertainties of farming prompted J.R. Spitznogle to seek a career as an entrepreneur. But he had to get through a very rocky field to make-the transition.
He encountered successive partners who were lackadaisical, who panicked, and who withheld crucial financial information, customers who reneged on orders after he made heavy investments to fill them, and a sales representative who became a fierce competitor.
To launch his entrepreneurial career, Spitznogle sold his agricultural business and cashed in his investments. Two acquaintances who sold machinery for plastic-injection molding were upbeat about the future of that industry, and Spitznogle proposed that the three of them go into that business. He became a 40 percent owner.
First-year growth was too slow for Spitznogle, but his partners did not share his impatience. When some larger customers seeking higher performance offered him their business if he started his own company, Spitznogle sold his interest in his original firm and found a new partner knowledgeable about injection-molding equipment.
They launched Global Plastics, Inc., in Indianapolis, IN. But customers who had urged him to take that step responded slowly or not at all when he sought the promised orders.
To counter those setbacks, the new company developed a few proprietary products, as opposed to the industry's normal practice of producing to customer specifications. Spitznogle's partner found an aggressive sales representative who was so successful that he left to open his own business, taking several of Global's customers.
When "my partner panicked and asked to leave the company," Spitznogle says, he exchanged a small line of proprietary products for the partner's stock.
At that point, Spitznogle found that the company doing Global's tooling work was in financial difficulties. He suggested a merger as a matter of mutual survival, and the tooling firm moved to Global.
But, Spitznogle says, the financial condition of the tooling company was worse than he had realized. Vendors were reluctant to do business with Global because of its new affiliation.
He had to remedy those and related problems while running a much larger company, he recalls, and "solving all of the financial problems required spending every dollar of profit for an entire year."
The tooling-company owner who had become his new partner took the engineering department in yet another breakup agreement, and Spitznogle kept the rest of Global, which now has 30 employees and did $2.5 million in sales last year.
After all the turmoil with partners, he says, he now has the company he envisioned when he left farming for what he thought would be the more stable world of entrepreneurship. "Global is now under my direct control and performing according to my business plan," he comments.
He encountered successive partners who were lackadaisical, who panicked, and who withheld crucial financial information, customers who reneged on orders after he made heavy investments to fill them, and a sales representative who became a fierce competitor.
To launch his entrepreneurial career, Spitznogle sold his agricultural business and cashed in his investments. Two acquaintances who sold machinery for plastic-injection molding were upbeat about the future of that industry, and Spitznogle proposed that the three of them go into that business. He became a 40 percent owner.
First-year growth was too slow for Spitznogle, but his partners did not share his impatience. When some larger customers seeking higher performance offered him their business if he started his own company, Spitznogle sold his interest in his original firm and found a new partner knowledgeable about injection-molding equipment.
They launched Global Plastics, Inc., in Indianapolis, IN. But customers who had urged him to take that step responded slowly or not at all when he sought the promised orders.
To counter those setbacks, the new company developed a few proprietary products, as opposed to the industry's normal practice of producing to customer specifications. Spitznogle's partner found an aggressive sales representative who was so successful that he left to open his own business, taking several of Global's customers.
When "my partner panicked and asked to leave the company," Spitznogle says, he exchanged a small line of proprietary products for the partner's stock.
At that point, Spitznogle found that the company doing Global's tooling work was in financial difficulties. He suggested a merger as a matter of mutual survival, and the tooling firm moved to Global.
But, Spitznogle says, the financial condition of the tooling company was worse than he had realized. Vendors were reluctant to do business with Global because of its new affiliation.
He had to remedy those and related problems while running a much larger company, he recalls, and "solving all of the financial problems required spending every dollar of profit for an entire year."
The tooling-company owner who had become his new partner took the engineering department in yet another breakup agreement, and Spitznogle kept the rest of Global, which now has 30 employees and did $2.5 million in sales last year.
After all the turmoil with partners, he says, he now has the company he envisioned when he left farming for what he thought would be the more stable world of entrepreneurship. "Global is now under my direct control and performing according to my business plan," he comments.