Business View - November 2015 67
website and offer your hundred thousand customers an-
other 25,000 skus.” (A sku, or stock keeping unit, is an
alphanumeric identification of a particular product that
allows it to be tracked for inventory purposes.) “Compa-
nies are interested in this,” Vagenas continues. “We have
about 15 contracts that we just signed and we’re going
to be building out all these projects over the next years.
And that will bring us to a run rate of $160 million next
year, and $360 million the year after. And if we keep up
the rate we’re growing, we can be at $700 million by the
year 2020!”
Vagenas considers Pharmapacks a technology-driven
company that took its technology and turned it into retail
sales. “Anyone can buy and sell products,” he says. “But
if you come and see what we actually do, it’s not as sim-
ple as that. There are a lot of sites out there that are just
straight, retail e-commerce sites. What differentiates us
is that we have an entire infrastructure technology that’s
built and that’s what drives our sales and our growth.”
Andrew Vagenas proves that it still take ideas, intelli-
gence, courage, industry, patience, and competence to
create a thriving business. Indeed, the Pharmapacks
story is a testament to that enduring principle. And any
prospective entrepreneur would benefit greatly by taking
a page out of this particular company’s textbook. It’s a
very good read.
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