- November 23, 2024
-
-
Loading
Loading
Best 3 Bids, owned by Mike Bowen, connects contractors and handymen to clients, through web listings.
BY MIKE CAVALIERE | ASSOCIATE EDITOR
When Mike Bowen moved into his office, at 100 E. Granada Blvd., to open Best 3 Bids, a web company that connects contractors and handymen to clients, he was ready to go. But his business was not.
The space he had leased was previously used for storage, he says, and was loaded with boxes. It was “ugly,” gray walls with sparkles. He had no staff. And the website that would host his new venture was still only being designed — and he didn’t know at the time that it would take three additional redesigns after that one to finally get it right.
“It’s been a long road,” Bowen said. “It’s been exactly two years … since I first wrote ‘Best 3 Bids’ on a legal pad.”
But there was a plus side: He had help.
A member of the University of Central Florida’s small-business incubator program, Bowen first worked out the kinks of what would become Best 3 Bids (he bought 16 different Internet domain names initially) inside space the program lends to its users at the Daytona Beach International Airport.
Then he and the incubator team got researching. They analyzed the industry and local market. They made projections. His site passed through two focus groups from Daytona State College.
“We like to call the $100,000 we spent in the past year ‘research and development,’ ” Bowen said, with a smile.
But after all of the hard work, Bowen’s Best3Bids.com officially launched last month. And already, six employees have been hired to staff, and they’re sprinkled throughout a 15-seat call center set up in his suite’s main office.
Bowen hopes to have every seat filled by Christmas.
“I’ve owned a lot of businesses,” he said. “And I’ve always been in the construction industry. … I was even in the bait-and-tackle business. But this here — this is bigger than me.”
For nearly a year before launch, Bowen says his company got offers to open in different cities and states.
“But I really want to keep it here,” Bowen said.
A 35-year county resident, he wants to stay as local as possible: The company’s lawyer is Greg Snell, from Snell Legal; Josh Williams, from Ormond Beach’s lifetimeoffun.com, is its web guy.
This is how the system works — “Fisher-Price simple,” as Bowen would say. Contractors pay $49.99 per month to be added to the company’s service directory and be notified of when prospective clients post free work-wanted ads. The contractor then contacts the client with a bid for the job, or to set up an estimate meeting.
It takes two minutes for clients to post a job, Bowen said, and three minutes for contractors to sign up. Listings are also only online for 72 hours, to avoid “stale leads.”
“When I owned Central Florida Tile and Marble, I couldn’t afford TV or radio (ads),” Bowen said. “I just couldn’t do it.”
So this, he says, is the alternative.
“In two days, we’ve already filled 10 online jobs,” Bowen noted. “The ball is rolling — and that was (after) a soft launch.”
As for starting a business during an economic slow point — Bowen doesn’t like the word “recession” — he’s not too worried.
“You need to take care of your biggest investment: your home,” he said. “A lot of people can’t sell their houses, don’t want to sell their houses.”
So, instead, they repair. And that's where his company comes in.
Visit best3bids.com.
