Four Tips from Daring Entrepreneur Eric States, Owner of After 5 and Surf to Summit

Start small and test. “Put great emphasis on working with the co-op databases,” States says, “because their modeling capabilities are so strong. Once you have a feel of your merchandise, you need help from a good modeler or co-op organization to give you the names of who would buy your products.”

2. Study data from co-op databases closely. After 5 discovered through some of its co-ops, such as NextAction, that it was very strong in gift sales. “I never thought of us as a gift catalog, nor did I want to be, because we’d end up focused only on gift-giving times,” States says.