Best of Indy: Fashion Enterprise
Winter in the Circle City demands a scarf. Infinity loops, fuzzy skinnies, oversized wraps—we love ’em all. But if tying one fashionably has you in knots, direct your mouse to Scarves.net, where you’ll find hundreds of scarves under $20 plus a Pinterest-esque compilation of 50 ways to wear them. Video tutorials set to peppy music, step-by-step photos, and even a downloadable e-book are all courtesy of the bubbly, hip employees at One Click Ventures, an e-commerce business located in a 68,000-square-foot office-warehouse in Greenwood.
The co-founders and CEOs of One Click, Randy and Angie Stocklin, met through Match.com, though they also had mutual friends, including one who warned Angie that Randy was just a tad motivated: He’d previously started three businesses (and as it turned out, he read books on house-flipping during their honeymoon). They launched One Click in 2005 and purchased their first website, a company that sent children personalized letters from Santa Claus. A year later, they acquired SunglassWarehouse.com and filled their four-bedroom home in Perry Township with 2,000 pairs of sunglasses and a bevy of shipping supplies.
Today, One Click runs e-commerce sites devoted to handbags, reader glasses, neckties, sunglasses, and scarves, and its portfolio until recently also included web stores for travel products, fedoras, and socks. The expansion demanded more-spacious digs last year, which they acquired with financial support from the Johnson County Economic Development Commission and a pledge from Mitch Daniels of nearly $1 million in tax breaks if One Click fulfills its job-growth
goals by 2017. The investment has already paid off: The company has had a big year, increasing revenue by 40 percent and watching its sites get regular attention from popular national magazines, including 21 mentions in Redbook alone, 15 in People StyleWatch, and one in Lucky.
Now, 90 percent of One Click’s products are stored in a warehouse in Greenwood, next to offices befitting a fashion-based company. Some 60 employees (most of them under 30) occupy a laid-back space with an AstroTurf-covered lounge area decorated with party lights and couches as red as Taylor Swift’s lipstick.
Five brand-themed conference rooms reflect each website’s merchandise—HandbagHeaven.com’s sports bubble-gum–pink walls, houndstooth chairs, and an Art Deco chandelier—and One Click’s work-meets-play culture. “Sometimes new people who come into the organization don’t realize that you can be serious at your work and have a lot of fun,” Angie says, adding that employees regularly volunteer in the community and enjoy company-wide pitch-ins and ping-pong tournaments. That mix of business and pleasure seems to be working just fine, with One Click approaching nearly $10 million in annual revenue and racking up valuable mentions in the mainstream media. Not bad for a company that started out on a kitchen table.
This article appeared in the December 2013 issue.
