Carter Schimpff of the Garraty Group talks about his entrepreneurial journey
30th November 2011 · 0 Comments
The Garraty Group was born in 2009 after founder Carter Schimpff “kept hearing horror story after horror story” from people frustrated with consultants paid to market their small business.
Soon after he created the Ft. Worth-based company to provide affordable, local, trustworthy online marketing services to Texas small and mid-size businesses.
Schimpff bootstrapped the whole thing while his family lived off savings and his wife’s salary and he said the most challenging aspect of being an entrepreneur was the period immediately following what he calls the “start-up frenzy”.
“There were many times during that period that I questioned what I was doing and whether or not I’d made a terrible choice,” he said.
His efforts paid off and within six months of its founding Garraty Group was running “in the black” with a small but steady group of loyal clients.
Aided by word of mouth, the company landed contracts from as far away as El Paso and Brownsville based on recommendations from small business owners that it worked with in Fort Worth.
The company had about $55,000 in sales in 2010, and revenue for 2011 are predicted to top $90,000, with an excellent outlook for 2012, Schimpff said.
In the next few months, the company is looking to move into larger offices, from where it currently offices in the unused upstairs portion of a local art gallery, which as been a choice location to keep overhead costs down.
Throughout his journey, Schimpff said he learned that no matter how great a product or service is, an entrepreneur has to promote hard every day of the week.
“You have to be able to move past any timidity or shyness and talk to complete strangers about what you do and offer, every single day of the year,” he said.
