Profile
Biography
Richard Colness –President/CEO – Mr. Colness is the driving force behind Xander, having been the designer of the pet toy line of products. He is a University of Minnesota graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Marketing and Business Administration. He went on to serve with the U.S. Navy Air Corps as a Data Analyst. After returning to civilian life, Mr. Colness after extensive business and manufacturing experience became Founder and CEO of profitable, rapidly growing multi-line pet products company – ICT, LLC. He is a collaborative manger, decisive and tenacious problem solver with a successful track record of delivering results and profits. Deep and varies executive experience in product design/development, retail sales, operations, technical program management, and business development. Mr. Colness has extensive experience managing and growing complex multi-market businesses in manufacturing, technology, and eCommerce. Demonstrated executive leadership and as board member, business advisor, and functional department manager. Proven analytical, problem solving, client and project management skills. Direct responsibility for initiatives including: new business start-up, technical product design, marketing plan development, process design, retail sales and operations, both bricks & mortar and online B2B & B2C.
Featured Deals
Richard,
Have you considered attending or presenting to the 150+ investors who will be at the upcoming private equity conference at The Yale Club New York?
See http://events.starlightinvestments.com/htmls/message.html
Good Day Everyone,
Over the past few months I have been seeking funding of $5,000,000 by approaching equity banks, VC Groups and the like. I have had several offers and have turned them down due to unacceptable terms and or conditions generally placing unusual burdens on the company.
Many advised me that it is easier to raise a large sum of funding than small amounts. Experience speaks...Right? Well In the last two weeks I have changed my search from a large amount to $250,000 (minimum $25k) in first round funding and am considering two investors. I should of followed my gut and the small funding first.
I place postings in Craig's List daily and am receiving 1 to 5 interested parties daily. Of course my postings are creative to peak interest and they do stand out from all the rest. But, the point is that there are a lot of smallish investors out there looking for a pot of gold and I am willing to share mine.
The $250k will do proof of concept for us and make it easier to scrape together an added $2M when needed. Every EG or VC group askes me "what are your sales" or "When can we expect ROI". My well meaning logical replys have gone unheard. When we begin sales and production next month I can look back and say (at least to myself) we did it on our own with the help of a few "friends".
I wish to thank all those that have considered my funding proposal and even offer a smallish bit of it to them...I have $100k left and perceive little problem in putting it together.
Thank you all.
A few years ago my wifes cousin "DD" brought her dog Jack over for us to dogsit while she went on a cruise vacation here in San Diego. Jack is a great dog friendly and very playful we were delighted to help out. One problem DD did not bring any toys for Jack to play with so I went to PetCo to find one. There were dozens to choose from but I finally selected a 18" long stuffed toy made in the shape of a dachshund and cost $15.00. When I returned home I gave it to Jack and he took off running with it.
About 15 minutes later I went looking for Jack to see how happy he was with the new toy. I found him in the back yard sitting in the middle of the shreds of the new toy. 15 minutes for 15 dollars. Jack was perfectly happy to chew and eat these pieces but I was concerned and somewhat dismayed. I cleaned up the mess and while doing so a thought occured to me so I went back to PetCo to look at the toys again. Out of the dozens of toys there was nothing really durable and lots of toys with toxic dyes used and stating as much on their labels.
Being a product designer I saw this as an opportunity. I went to Tandy Leather after some thought and bought a half skin of hide, made some patterns and cut out some shapes. I brought them to a shoe repair shop and had them sewn together. They were a bit rough but good enough to test and test them I did with great results ...at dog parks, at the beach and in the back yard. After months of testing and new samples and a production run in Mexico I had a great new line of dog toys I called XanderToys named after our new dog Xander an English Springer Spaniel.
The second brand I came up with, XanderGreen, is a little more complicated but I'll shorten it up. I was sitting outside a video production studio in Hollywood talking to a friend of mine. He was there waiting do a new commercial for one of his companies. He was telling me about a problem he was having with one of his horses. Some sort of infection on the horses chest he could not get rid of. He had spend a lot of money on creams and other treatments including vet bills. Then he tried one of his own products that is used to kill bacteria for another purpose in a completely different industry. He srprayed it on the infected area and it was gone in 24 hours. Light bulbs went off in my head again about its use for the pet industry. 2 years later it was NSF and USDA approved as a nontoxic and biodegradable solution for a whole host for pet problems.
It is amazing what comes from a little thought and a lot of work.
