Shrink Wrap Scales Big

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An article in the March issue of Forbes detailed how a Reno man makes a living by basically playing the saranwrap game you played on your college buddies but on a much larger scale.  On a hunt to find a way to protect his boat from the elements, Michael Enos, couldn't find what he wanted so he ordered some plastic and some heat guns and figured it out by himself in just three days. Nearly fifteen years later, he sold off his rent-a-potty business that supplied the Burning Man festival and moved on to co-found FastWrap -- a shrink-wrapping business that advertises "weatherization through innovation"

From wrapping boats to patio furniture to casinos, and providing shelter in disasters to shelter from sun damage, the shrink wrapping business has been around much longer than 2007.  Fast Wrap's competitor, Global Wrap, has been around since 1981 and the ideas was said to have been first developed by the Swedes in the 1960s. 
Is it coincidence the competitors started in recessions? Businesses like these probably see profit increases when the economy goes south and commercial developers have to pull out or delay projects. What Enos seems to have on the competition is his ability to mobilize and multiply the concept faster by offering the idea up to others via franchise.


Quoted in a Washington Post Small Business blog in 2008, Enos said: "A successful entrepreneur is a risk taker. If you believe in your concept or your business enough and failure is not an option...money is out there. If you have a good concept and a track record of being a hard working guy who makes things happen, money will find you."

Sources:
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0315/second-acts-plastic-fast-wrap-franchise-shrink-wrap-king.html
http://fastwrapusa.com/images/pdfs/fastwrap_media/Fortune%20SB%20March%202009.pdf
http://www.globalwrap.com/homepage.html
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/small-business/2008/11/its_a_wrap_is_just_the_beginni.html

What would you like to shrink-wrap?

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