Northampton, Massachussetts
President of Northampton-based cartridge remanufacturer Ink & Toner Solutions, Inc. discusses business.
In an article on GazetteNet.com, Serges LaRiviere, President of cartridge remanufacturing company Ink & Toner Solutions, Inc., summarises his business and how he maintains its success.
Based in Northampton, Hampshire, Massachussetts, the company was established in 2006 and targets “the consumer who wants to go green in their office or home”, with the main product being eco-friendly remanufactured cartridges. LaRiviere, who claims to have “over 30 years of experience” in the business, co-owned another business with his brother prior to setting up Ink & Toner, Inc. called Delta Machine & Tool, Inc., which they began in 1983 and sold in 2004. He also currently owns and operates Northampton Computer Repair.
In terms of financing, LaRiviere said that at the time of starting the business “the banks were not lending money to open small businesses so I took what I had in savings and started on a shoe string and built the business from that”. However, the Country Bank agreed to give the company an operating loan in 2009 after reviewing its financials.
Explaining how the company attracts customers, LaRiviere said that it is increasingly using “the many different avenues of the internet” to reach out to its markets, including the use of two blogs on both company websites featuring content “that will help the consumer solve problems or just give them good quality information”. LaRiviere added that the most frequently asked question customers ask is “What is the best printer for me?”, and so the company added a downloadable PDF file to its site offering a guide to choosing the right printer.
Among the challenges the company has faced over the years, LaRiviere mentioned the difficulty of “keeping up with the ever-changing face of business”, adding that “what worked 10 years ago might not work now” and that there is no point in having the mind-set of “but this is how we’ve always done it”.
He also recalled the error he feels he made in the early years of the business where he “decided to take on the entire refilling process in-house on my own” after feeling confident in his ability due to his past experience in manufacturing. “What I did not figure on is how fast this industry changes”, he explained. “New printers each year meant new cartridges, new inks and new embedded chips that all had to be researched and implemented into the remanufacturing process.
“This proved too much for one person, so I switched gears and I now have all of the remanufacturing of the ink and toner cartridges down off-site by highly qualified vendors that have entire research and development staff on-site and quality control facilities that can handle the constant changes, leaving me the time I need to run my business and make the changes needed as the market dictates.”
Offering advice to prospective business-owners, LaRiviere recommended “research[ing] that industry as deeply and thoroughly as you possibly can. Not having a complete picture and understanding can more or break a start-up”. He also emphasised the importance of continuously learning what is new in business: “Never give up, nothing is easy. Never look back. When you make a mistake, learn from it and try again, there is no other way in business.
“Running a business should never be just about making money, it must be a labour of love and it doesn’t hurt to have a little bit of fun along the way.”