Baltimore County, MD NextUp: Baltimore County, 21 Nov 2016

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From YouTube: The LAX Stick Doctor Is In

Description

What started as a dorm room idea has become East Coast Dyes, a company with 12 employees and a range of products sold through major sports retailers around the world.

A flexible loan from the Baltimore County Boost Fund helped East Coast Dyes move out of Greg’s house into a 9,000 square foot space in Towson. The company now has 12 employees, with plans to add more.

Baltimore County’s stick doctor is now a CEO, leading a company that is adding innovative products to the East Coast Dyes enterprise.

The company motto says it all: Hard Work Pays Off.

The Baltimore County Boost Fund is a flexible financing resource for small, minority-and women-owned businesses in the region. For more information or to apply for a loan, visit the Baltimore County Department of Economic and Workforce Development at www.BCBoostFund.com or call 410-887-8000.

A

We're at East Coast eyes headquarters in Towson Maryland. These gift eyes is a lacrosse manufacturer of high-performance equipment. We start off by making lacrosse mesh moved into shafts, and now we actually make heads as well, so we make the full stick for lacrosse players. East Coast eyes actually started in my brother's college apartment, where he was straining and dying, sticks I, just making a little side money here and there eventually after college, moved into a house together where he invented our first product, which is east coast mesh, wax paste across mesh.

A

We sold only on our website in the beginning and we'd see orders in Georgia and Texas in California, and we kind of see him pop out and people would always ask us. Oh you're, located in baltimore most of your sales in baltimore, and the answer is actually no. We do a ton of sales out-of-state. We do a kind of sales internationally we're solder, numerous every state, we're in 500, Dick's, Sporting Goods locations and we're actually sold in seven different countries. Obviously, for any growing company money is always a struggle.

A

You need cash, be able to grow working. Capital. Is a hard thing when you tried to hire employees you're, trying to buy inventory and you're trying to do more marketing to sell more product inventory is always a hard part. You've got to buy inventory, it's a long cash conversion cycle. By the time you order the product you make the product you sell the product and get paid for the product.

A

It can be up to 120 to 200 days so by having that working capital and having that float and Baltimore County's done a great job with getting us that booze funds really helped our company stabilize and help it grow. The cross is really kind of near and dear to a lot of the roots of Baltimore. You have so many great college teams here. You've got Hopkins oil Towson, so I couldn't really imagine having a business not in this area. We really just didn't want to leave. We like the community like people.

A

Obviously, we've worked a lot with Baltimore County team and they've done a great job to help us as well, and just a convenient place and very lacrosse book.