Entrepreneur Creates Biz From 20-year Old Movie
For Stephen Clark, the man behind bttf.com, passion is what fuels his “Back to the Future” site, which he confesses with a chuckle, is successful despite being based on a movie series over 20-years-old. Clark, who has a full-time day job at a nearby university, went online in 1995, though the site’s genesis was a fanzine launched 15 years ago.
“I realized it was cheaper and easier to go online,” says Clark. “And at the same time realized selling merchandise was the best way to fund my little obsession, because there was a demand for it. I was getting inquires about where to find toys, t-shirts so it grew from folks looking for hard-to-find items.”
But, as with any niche audience that’s gone through the trouble to track you down, Clark’s customers are demanding, in that they want memorabilia that is genuine and licensed — no rip-offs. “There’s lots of fake stuff on eBay, but my audience is picky, they won’t touch it. If something’s not just right, if it’s a t-shirt with a character saying something they just wouldn’t say, they flat out turn their nose up and say, ‘I’m not buying that, it looks like a flea market item.’”
Given the high expectations, it’s only natural that Clark would share the fanaticism for the classic 80s movies that his site visitors do. In terms of marketing, he said AdWords is too expensive, and because he’s got a search-friendly URL and years online, he’s at the top of the search engine results anyway.
Where his luck comes into play is his connections. A former partner had Hollywood insider access to the cast and crew, and when he bailed on the project, Clark took over, and now acts as a consultant to some of the actors, managing their Web sites, as well as offering advice to Tinseltown’s marketing machine.
“We get exclusive interviews, autographed stuff, everything we sell is approved by the studios,” says Clark.
He uses Volusion, his fourth store platform, and he says the best one so far. In terms of shipping, his customers don’t want to wait for their merchandise, so he fulfills orders from inventory out of his home, sending off nearly 2,000 packages a year by his estimate.
Clark, however, is not without his own eye on the future. “I heard of this MySpace and YouTube stuff and I’m scratching my head over it saying, ‘I don’t get it.’ But everyone says this is the new way to network, so I’ve learned to roll with the flow and learn the new ways of attracting new site visitors,” says Clark. “So I have a MySpace page up there and did a commercial with a car and put it on YouTube.”
For Clark, ignoring the critics and going with his passion is what he says makes the site so successful. “Hey, yeah, my kids roll their eyes at their geeky dad, and my wife is patient that I still do this,” says Clark, “but I’m an Alabama home-grown boy and I’ve been able to take my kids to Hollywood and ride in Delorean cars and hang with the actors in the back lot of the studio, so for me, that’s all worth not listening to the nay-sayers who think I’m a bit crazy.”
Photo by Amazon.com.
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