Best business contest winners - Home Office Computing's annual contest - Cover Story

Home Office Computing, July, 1993 by Rosalind Resnick

When the company hit $5,000 in monthly revenues, Ron quit his night job and focused on the business full-time. The couple moved into a two-bedroom duplex and bought their first computer. Contact-management software replaced the plastic shoebox and the bound stacks of cards they'd used to track sales calls.

But as Pam's delivery date approached, Ron's home office began to look more like a nursery. "Business was growing, but so was Pain," says Ron. "She was still cleaning up until the Thursday before the baby was born, and she went into labor on that Saturday." Ryan was born December 2, 1990, and Ron was evicted from his home office.

The Stahrs' big break came when Ron asked some friends to help out until Pam was able to work again. "I showed them that the business was profitable and a few of them wanted to start their own," he says. Once his friends were sold on the idea, Ron moved on to subcontracting cleaning routes to other people.

Today the Stahrs don't clean the buildings themselves. Instead, Ron finds the customers, makes the bids, and farms out the work to contractors, who in turn pay the Stahrs a onetime finder's fee plus a percentage of the value of each job. The Stahrs have 35 contractors and are preparing to franchise the business later this year. They're also planning to expand their region farther north to Orlando and Jacksonville.

Pam goes to the office two days a week to handle the bookkeeping and paper work. Ryan, almost three, accompanies her at least one day and seems to enjoy his early office experience.

Though Hurricane Andrew hurt their business last year when it ripped through South Dade, the Stahrs still managed to rack up close to $400,000 in gross sales and over $76,000 in net profits. Today the company has seven full- and part-time employees and a suite of offices in Hollywood, Florida.

The Stahrs, who once slept on a fold-out couch in an old garage, now relax in their new three-bedroom, two-bathroom home in affluent Hollywood Hills. "Our old boss told us that we'd never be able to do it," Ron says. "Hah! Being a business owner makes you realize that you really are worth more than someone else is willing to pay you."

SNAPSHOT

RON AND PAM STAHR

RESIDENCE: Hollywood, Rorida

BUSINESS: Sunbelt Janitorial Systems Inc., commercial cleaning service

1992 REVENUES: $379,911

EQUIPMENT: 386 and 486 IBM-compatible computers; Hewlett-Packard LaserJet lIP Plus and Panasonic LaserJet, and three Panasonic dot-matrix printers

SOFTWARE: Business Master, Central Point Backup, Excel, LaserTools Print cache, Microsoft Publisher, Windows, Word for Windows, and Norton Utilities

Rx FOR SUCCESS: "Perseverance!"

Medical Mail-Practice

Echoing the famous opening line from Norman MacLean's story A River Runs Through It, Dr. Kenneth High began his contest entry like this: "I don't remember there ever being a distinguishable line between fly-fishing as a sport and fly-fishing as a way of life."

Now, thanks to his thriving, sideline mail-order company, the urologist is experiencing fly-fishing as a business--and doing quite well at it. Last year, the part-time venture grossed $160,000.