Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Making it work
FAU Tech Runway graduate finds success.
DEERFIELD BEACH – Entrepreneur Jan Bednar was in his early 20s when he founded his first company, which was accepted into Florida Atlantic University’s Tech Runway startup accelerator program.
Now, at 26, Bednar has taken his business idea and pivoted it into ShipMonk, a logistics company for e-commerce sites that expects to do $10 million in business this year. In 2016, the company generated $4 million in sales.
ShipMonk opened a warehouse in Deerfield Beach this spring and is slated to open a second warehouse outside Los Angeles this fall. The company employs 70 people. In August, ShipMonk packaged a record 500,000 items for shipping; the figure was 13,000 a year ago.
Bednar “was a real prodigy. It is truly amazing,” said Jim Ryan, a South Florida entrepreneur who is a mentor to Bednar as well as other startup businesses in Tech Runway.
The young entrepreneur saw opportunity because startup companies want to sell products on multiple e-commerce sites, often including Amazon, Walmart.com, Etsy and Shopify, as well as their own branded websites.
“The name of the game in retail is multi-channel. You don’t want to put all your bets on one horse,” Bednar said.
ShipMonk has developed a technology platform that syncs its warehouse operation with management of inventory and shipping.
“This industry is like an old school industry that no one has revolutionized. There’s a huge opportunity for a young, cool start-up to come in and change the landscape a little bit,” Bednar said.
So far, Bednar has built ShipMonk without outside investment.
Originally from the Czech Republic, Bednar came to the U.S. as an international student, first at Cardinal Gibbons High School in Fort Lauderale, and then at FAU. Several of his employees were fellow students from those schools.
He began his business as a mail-forwarding service for international consumers making online purchases from U.S.-based merchants.
Bednar was just 21 when he began the company in 2014. He graduated from FAU in May 2014, earning his bachelor’s degree in information systems management. As part of FAU Tech Runway in 2015, Bednar’s company got its start with a $25,000 grant and free office space at the FAU campus in Boca Raton.
The company also packages products for many small, startup e-commerce businesses that are looking to expand. The packages are shipped via Federal Express, DHL or the U.S. Postal Office.
“Our motto is ‘stress less, grow more,’ ” said Bednar of the ShipMonk name and the brand it has developed.
South Florida customers include The Beard King, a Miami-based beard bib and grooming supplies company. Founders Nicholas and Alessia Galekovic, who launched their business in 2015, were literally living with their inventory, shipping from their apartment. But then the business began to grow — especially after an appearance on ABC-TV’s “Shark Tank.”
“Our apartment was full of product — it was terrible,” Nick Galekovic said. Then they met Bedar and soon became a prime customer.
Galekovic said Bednar has been able to grow ShipMonk because “he’s not afraid to take risks….he wasn’t scared to say ‘yes’ to things — he just figured out a way.”
The Beard King also sells and ships through Amazon. But while being in an Amazon store can attract customers, profit margins get squeezed. Also, the company doesn’t have access to customer information to generate more sales, Galekovic said.
ShipMonk also packs for many subscription services, such as South Florida’s CatLadyBox, which ships monthly boxes of unique cat-related items.
Dorian Wagner, founder of CatLadyBox in Deerfield Beach, has shipped her products with ShipMonk since she began the business in 2015.
Wagner said she explored other options for shipping, but chose to work with Bednar. “I like people who are excited and new — they’re more fun to work with than people who say, ‘This is how we’ve always done it,”’ `she said.