When he was a salesman for an eyeglass frame wholesaler, Gary Martin Zelman kept nagging his boss to add more clip-on sunglasses to the line. But his boss wasn’t interested. “Finally he got fed up with me,” Zelman recalled. “He said, ‘when you own your own company, you can do all the clip-ons you want.'” So that’s what he did. With a $15,000 investment from his father-in-law and co-partner, Roland Messih, Zelman formed Revolution Eyewear. The company originated as a supplier of frames marketed in combination with clip-on accessories, but soon Zelman improved on the idea, developing a new clip-on design. The simple idea catapulted the company to $8 million in sales and helped Revolution win the 1999 Bank of America Small Business Award in the category of innovation. Clip-ons, a second frame that attaches to the eyeglass so that clear prescription glasses can double as sunglasses, had been around since the 1950s. But no one had thought to package the frame with the clip-on until Zelman began marketing his eyewear, according to industry observers. “If somebody was genuinely interested in a clip-on, the extra price point wouldn’t be a big sticking factor,” said John Macaray, chief executive of Southland Opticians in Studio City. “But because Revolution made it a standard feature and integrated the clip-on into the price of the frame and made it available to everyone, they created their market.” When Zelman first set off on his own in 1993, he began contacting the trade boards for countries around the world. Working with a list of manufacturers they provided, he set out to find a supplier. Most of the companies he contacted were asking prohibitively high prices, but finally Zelman found a supplier in Hong Kong who was able to deliver the types of goods he was seeking at competitive prices. Scouring eyeglass stores, Zelman next put together a selection of designer frames that represented the best-selling styles in the market and had them reproduced by his new supplier. He combined the frames with the clip-ons and a carrying case, at a price that was about the same as the cost of an original, designer frame without the clip-on. For the first year, Zelman and Messih worked out of a garage, and they didn’t take a salary. Sales totaled $450,000. With the small initial investment, they had to make sure they turned their inventory over quickly, and Zelman spent all day trying to convince retail chains to carry his products. “There wasn’t the furor over clip-ons that there is now,” Zelman said. “What made us a little more novel was the fact that we were low-priced.” Soon, however, Zelman began working on an idea that would increase the popularity of clip-ons. Since the 1950s, clip-on sunglasses had been designed with a bar that ran across the brow line, a feature that many considered unattractive. Zelman developed and patented a design that eliminated the brow-bar, so the clip-ons fastened to the eyeglass frame with little hooks. The change made clip-ons popular among women and others looking for fashionable eyewear. By 1995, sales had climbed to $2 million, thanks mostly to the new clip-on design and the company’s policy of pricing its eyewear well below the cost of the original designer frames. In 1997, Zelman improved upon his clip-on design again by using magnets to affix the sunglasses. For some types of clip-ons, the wearer has to remove the glasses and fit the hooks onto the frame. But magnetic clip-ons slip right onto the frame, making it easier for drivers, for example, to put on their sunglasses without removing their glasses. It was the magnetic clip-on that helped Revolution win the Bank of America Small Business Award. Revolution beat out 45 other finalists in the competition, said Lisa Margolin-Feher, a spokeswoman for the bank. “This is such a great example of an innovative thinker who had a great idea and couldn’t find what he was thinking of in the marketplace and went out and created it,” she said. “This is the type of company that we’re looking for in our small-business award program.” Since it began operations in 1993, Revolution has built a customer base of over 10,000 clients nationwide. The vast majority of the company’s retail outlets are mom-and-pop optical stores, although the company has recently added such chains as Sterling Optical and Pearl Vision Centers. The company’s sales force has grown to 30 independent reps, and Zelman said he expects to add another 20 salespeople in the next two and a half years. Meanwhile, Revolution has been expanding its infrastructure, adding more phone operators and order processors in its 3,000-square-foot warehouse.
Revolution eyewear’s clip-on sunglasses won FIRM award for innovation, and LOTS of business
