Jim DiEugenio speaks on his son David’s choice between learning about business at school and running his own franchise.
Jim and David DiEugenio spoke 
with the Gainesville Sun on their business experiences, following over 15 years of owning and operating franchises in Ohio including fast food outlet Arby’s and Cartridge World.
Jim, 61, first became aware of Cartridge World as a consumer of the North Canton branch, and was reportedly so impressed with the service that he inquired as to whether it was a franchise and, shortly after establishing his own store gave his son David a choice of working at the store to better his business education.
“I said, ‘David, we can spend X amount of dollars on your education and have a diploma, or you can learn it live’.”
David, 19 at the time and now 21, had spent two semesters in the entrepreneurship programme at Stark State College in North Canton and commented: “I very quickly realised the difference between the theory of managing people and staff and actually putting it into practise […] One of the things we really together changed the way that I was told we should look at it, instead of a boss-employee relationship it’s really a team relationship. We really try to empower everybody as much as we can and take constructive input from everyone.”
With the majority of customers being businesses, David states that a significant amount of time is spent outside of the store networking with local businesses and has co-founded a networking group called Gainesville Networking Challenge, who have eagerly accepted Cartridge World in such a “green-oriented” community.
However Jim remarks on problems experienced, with the greatest challenge being overcoming what Gainesville Sun deem the “black eye” of the industry over drill-and-fill recyclers “whose cartridges break down after one or two uses”.
“The biggest thing we have an issue with is brand recognition and getting people to understand what we do and how we do it differently.”