At 18, Teenager Has The Entrepreneur Thing Down Cold Already

By PATRICK RILEY, Naples Daily News, San Antonio Express-News: World
Fri, 10/09/2015 - 10:00pm

(AP) — Leaning back in his office chair at his company's new Bonita Springs headquarters, a tan and clean-shaven Max Fata, with his red and white, high-top sneakers lurking from underneath his desk, glances at the rows of pink and blue razors arranged neatly in open boxes on foldable tables. Fata is the CEO of 99 Cent Razor, selling razors and other shaving accessories for men and women online at "affordable prices" and offering various month-to-month subscription plans. Selling "pop" out of the vending machine earned Fata about $200 a week — money he saved to invest in his next business venture: the Erase Case. Fata, who only had "some weird flip phone" at the time, started to wonder about "all these girls I knew" that "had like a 100 different phone cases" for their smartphones. Born was the idea of having a blank phone case that customers could decorate using a permanent marker and then erase using a spray to adorn anew over and over again. A teen retailer, called dELiA(asterisk)s, with about 100 stores across the country, including one at Coconut Point Mall, ordered cases to the tune of "twenty-something grand." The patented product took off on social media, at its peak garnering 102,000 followers on Instagram. The company's profit varied from week to week, but always spiked during the Christmas holidays, eating up all of Fata's spare time during break. To be sure there were bumps in the road, too, for the young entrepreneur and his blossoming business. There was interest from industry giants like Toys'R'Us, Bed Bath & Beyond, Sam's Club and Meijer, a large chain of Walmart-type stores in the Midwest, but Fata was never able to strike a deal. In part, perhaps, because he was, after all, a high school student walking into business meetings with seasoned businessmen. Even though similar companies, like Dollar Shave Club and Harry's, have crowded the market for the online sale of razors seemingly over

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