When Tony Bello and Joseph Reid started marketing Dish Rags -- cloth covers that fit over 18-inch satellite TV dishes -- they were focused on tackling college football fans.
Studies had shown that many of the 25 million TV dish owners in the country were beaming in college sports, so Dish Rags bought the rights to emblazon their covers with the logos of dozens of teams.
One year later, Dish Rag's focus on that "rabid niche" (as their business plan described it) seems to be paying off -- even as the company is turning heads well beyond the gridiron.
When we last wrote about Dish Rags in June, the partners had just taken first prize in The Miami Herald's Business Plan Challenge. At that time their product was only available in a handful of stores, and they had sold 3,000 of them. Now Dish Rags can be found in more than 90 retail outlets and dozens of e-commerce sites across the nation.
Because the company is in negotiations with potential investors, Bello said he wasn't at liberty to share many details, but he said Dish Rags is profitable and has sold "tens of thousands" of the covers, which retail for between $18.95 and $24.95.
In Tampa -- a hotbed of University of Florida alums -- the Gator Dish Rags have been more popular than Karen Chastain expected. The owner of the Heads & Tails sports merchandise shop, Chastain said she has sold 10 over the past several months despite not having space to display them.
During football season, she expects them to be hot items and plans to put one on the TV dish outside her store. "And then we'll count and see how long it takes them to steal it, " she said.
If you haven't spotted a Dish Rag dangling from the side of a condo or hovering over a home, keep an eye on your TV.
DEAL IN THE WORKS
Fox Sports recently approached the company about covering the TV dishes in the pits of NASCAR racetracks with the broadcaster's "Speedvision" logo, and Bello hopes the arrangement will help market the product.
The company also has found fans in the hunting community. At a recent gun show in Orlando, Dish Rags showed up with camouflage versions of its product.
"Hunters went crazy over it, " said Bello. "Apparently all their hunting lodges have satellite dishes."
But the company also has faced some static.
For starters, it discovered how difficult it is to get financing. Despite the fact that both men have been working in the telecommunications field for decades and both still have full-time jobs, their company is brand new.
"It's pretty daunting to go out and find financing if you have no track record, " said Bello. The partners had to personally guarantee 100 percent of a recent bank loan.
HARSH LESSON
"If we didn't have personal collateral, I don't think we would have gotten the loan, " he said. "It was an eye-opening experience for us."
The company also had some distribution hiccups.
One of its key strategies was to recruit DirecTV -- which controls the lion's share of the market -- into its sales force. Under an agreement with the company, DirecTV installers get $10 for every cover they sell. Problem is many of the installers don't want the job, said Bello.
"The reason many of them are engineers and technicians is because they don't like to sell -- or communicate, " said Bello. "They want to go into a house, do their job and get out."
But with plans in the works to sign licensing agreements with the National Basketball Association and the National Baseball League, Dish Rags is hoping to build up a roster of teams -- both college and pro -- that will rally the fans.
Stay tuned.
