62 Business View - November 2015
Pharmapacks
Innovative start-up is online leader in health and beauty
The story of Pharmapacks is a textbook case of an indi-
vidual entrepreneur who began with a great idea, was
smart enough to test out that idea to see if could fly, bold
enough to take a huge risk when the test showed prom-
ise, industrious enough to put a business together to
commoditize the idea, patient enough to push past the
inevitable growing pains, and competent enough to see
that idea through until it blossomed into a hugely suc-
cessful start-up company that has experienced phenom-
enal growth in just a few short years.
Andrew Vagenas is the entrepreneur who co-founded
Pharmapacks in 2010. He tells the story of the rocket-like
rise of his online, e-commerce company, which although
physically based in New York City, is more truly a citizen
of the vast regions of cyberspace.
“Prior to the company starting,” Vagenas begins, “one of
my partners and I owned a retail pharmacy. We were do-
ing well and we had access to the distributors that we
were dealing with. We had an idea to take some of the
merchandise we had at the pharmacy and try to sell it
online - to see what would happen. We took a chance,
sold some stuff online, and we saw that there was some
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