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At 22, CEO has had ups, downs In business since 15 and founder of a firm, he is seeking a degree from UR as an 'insurance policy'
| BY JEFFREY KELLEY TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER | Sep 27, 2005 |
Making a quick coffee run to Starbucks between his afternoon business classes at the University of Richmond, Joel Erb took a few minutes to reflect on how his company has grown and changed -- and how he has done much of the same.
"I don't bring up what I do to my professors; they kind of find out," explained Erb, the 22-year-old founder, president and chief executive of the Web design and marketing firm Inet Network Inc. and a senior at UR.
His is not the story of a kid running a little Web business out of his parents' basement.
"My age has always been a battle, playing against me in getting business, but it's played for me in that competitors don't even look," said Erb, who on this day was sporting a 5 o'clock shadow about two hours early, his black pinstripe sports jacket hanging over an open-collar white shirt.
Like most college students, Erb's classmates refer to the document they'll receive during next spring's graduation ceremonies as a diploma.
"I think of it as an insurance policy," said Erb, who, after having already been taught a tough lesson on risk, is paying his premium in case something were to happen to his successful seven-year-old company.
Your math is correct. He has been in business since age 15.
And it has taken him awhile to get to this point.
Raised as a Jehovah's Witness by a mail-carrier dad and a stay-at-home-mom, Erb grew up in a household where finances were about as lean as he is.
While his parents encouraged a rigorous life of ministry, Erb realized business was his future. He has since distanced himself from the devout religious lifestyle -- a decision his mother, Linda, said only he could make.
Even at 2, Erb was at the forefront of most children still in diapers, as noted in a story his mother frequently shares.
"There was this little wind-up choo-choo train with a clear plastic cover and colorful gears, and it didn't work," she recalled. So young Joel, who was handy with a screwdriver and had "already taken off every door in the house," went to work on the toy.
"And about an hour later, I hear this little 'choo-choo!'" she chuckled. "He'd taken it apart and put it back together again."
About 12 years later, Erb found some rather odd inspiration from the movie "Joe Versus the Volcano," in a scene in which Tom Hanks buys a suit from Giorgio Armani.
It gave the boy -- then 14 and honing his Web programming and design skills -- the idea to create an Internet site for the fashion company.
The first business call he ever made was to the New York marketing offices of Armani, along with two other prominent designers.
"I wrote up a little sales speech on paper and made the phone call and said, 'We designed a Web site for you, it's ready for you to take a peek,'" he recalled.
"I knew if I said, 'Let me build it, pay me,' it would never work."
And he was right.
Erb hit the Big Apple, and though Armani didn't need any Web work, Erb scouted around and found other New York clients -- many of whom he would lose in a dramatic turn of events a few years later.
Inet has since set a new course, and Erb is learning firsthand the risks involved in running a company.
Sometime after the New York trip, his business relationship with Realtor Lynn Pritchard began with a cold call.
Erb saw a luxury home she was advertising, and "he wanted to talk to me about possibly putting that house on a luxury homes Web site that he had developed," said Pritchard, of Joyner Fine Properties Inc. "Quite frankly, I wasn't particularly interested."
But she gave him 15 minutes for a meeting.
He arrived with an adult acting as his escort.
Pritchard recalled Erb's suit as slightly too big. Nonetheless, he looked professional, "with his hair combed just so."
She accepted his offer, and the two have been friends since.
Inet Network, formerly Inet Interactive Studios, has morphed from a pure Web design firm into a marketing and communications company, though it still maintains an Internet focus.
"The way I look at it is, we're kind of like the small Martin Agency for small businesses," said Erb, referring to the high-profile Richmond advertising agency.
Last month, Erb moved himself and four employees into a new office at 101 S. 15th St., a Shockoe Bottom spot that is going to look like a New York nightclub complete with $60,000 worth of mood lighting, which he has cued to ambient music that plays overhead.
The new office is just a skip away from his apartment in the River Lofts at Tobacco Row, where, nightly, he cooks his own meals.
He enjoys his lifestyle, but it wasn't always this great.
In 2001, Erb had 12 employees and was taking high school classes online with no plans ever to go to college -- a waste of time, he thought.
Business was rolling, money was flowing, and on a clear September morning, the Twin Towers fell.
With them went 80 percent of Inet's revenue, most of which came from New York. At 18, Erb fired eight employees, leaving four, and he faced a genuine threat of losing his company.
He became physically ill from the stress. Suddenly, a college education didn't seem like such a waste of time.
His friend Pritchard had contacts at UR and encouraged Erb to go. Within two weeks of the Sept. 11 attacks, a degree was on his "to-do" list. It wasn't until about a year later that business picked back up.
"What I learned my second year of school in my marketing class was is you have to plan for the worst," said Erb, who will receive a degree in business administration with a focus in marketing. "You've got to have an escape plan."
Lesson learned.
The four years at UR will serve as the transformation from Inet the Web design company to Inet the marketing and communications company. Erb plans to open a second office near Washington, or perhaps one closer to his clients in New York.
He wants Inet to go public within five years.
And though he didn't disclose revenues -- "high six figures," he says -- Erb says the company is better off than it has ever been, thanks in part to an education: that $100,000-plus insurance policy. Any ideas? Staff writer Jeffrey Kelley can be reached at (804) 649-6348 or [email protected]