Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Meet the Partners of GunAuction

                     Author: Angela de la Cruz

Manny’s office looks out to the snow covered Mt. Timpanogas in Orem, UT.  He has small models of Red Ferrari’s lining the windowsill and he’s sitting in a big leather chair behind his desk wearing a GunAuction branded t-shirt and hat.  Bob, whose face is projected on a wall-mounted big screen TV via video chat, is smoking a cigarette outside and showing the guys a silver clock out of an old Packard that he restored.  Mike is the quiet one; he sits there intently listening and nodding his head as a he takes a sip out of one of the two Diet Coke cans sitting in front of him. 

It’s like I’m sitting in on a group of old friends, catching up and showing off their new toys.  And that’s exactly how this company got started. 

Manny and Bob worked together at Bank of America in San Francisco and would spend their lunch breaks talking to each other about their time spent in the military and their views on the Second Amendment.  It wasn’t until 1997 when Manny bought a gun on eBay, a Ruger P-89 which sits loaded in his top desk drawer, that he thought about wanting an auction website where he could purchase guns.  After having the idea, Manny, who worked in tech support, started programming the site in the evenings on his home desktop computer. 

Bob Lancaster
“I would run back to Bob’s cubicle and say ‘Look what I did’ and Bob would say ‘That sucks’ or ‘That’s awesome,’” Manny recalls. 

It was those early conversations that helped form the beginnings of what was AuctionArms.com.  After a few months of back and forth with Bob about the site and its functions,  “We launched it! And nothing happened.”

AuctionArms.com was nothing but a website domain with about 150 users who bought and sold sparingly.  Manny say, “At that point it was a hobby and we weren’t making any money at it. And then one day I was at my bother-in-law’s house and he tells me ‘You might wanna check your website because eBay just announced they’re not gonna allow firearm sales to take place anymore.’  I thought he was yanking my chain….I checked the website and we had something like 2,000 registrations a day.” 

With success coming quickly to the site because of eBay’s decision to ban the sale of firearms, one would think Manny would be thrilled. 

“It was a nightmare! Our one little server kept crashing and we didn’t have any money.”  

So Manny did what any young entrepreneur would do: he asked for money.  He asked for money from the users of AuctionArms.com.  And the money came. 

“I sent an email out to users,” Manny laughs, “And I was getting something like a hundred checks a day sent to my house.” 

The checks were for small amounts, but what guy wouldn’t get excited about strangers sending him fistfuls of money?  It was especially a blessing when both Manny and Bob were laid-off at Bank of America in 2001 and needed something to fall back on.  Manny decided to work on programming AuctionArms.com full time and Bob worked on the financial and legal aspects of the company. 

“I was putting in a lot of time for this,” Bob recalls “I joked with Manny about throwing me a little equity if something comes of this company.  A couple years later Manny called me up and said ‘You’re a partner.’” 

Michael Wiederhold
Mike came into the company a little later; he was jetting across the country teaching week long classes on computer programming, but it all came to a halt in 2001 with the dot-com bubble.

“I was out of work for three or four months, living on savings.” Mike says, “I was at church and was introduced to Manny.  He asked me what I did and invited me to come visit him…. I let it sit for a couple weeks because I didn’t want to appear too eager”

“But you were running out of money,” interjects Manny with a smile.

“I was running out of money!” Mike continues with a laugh, “I came into the office and there’s a big screen TV, there was soda all over the place, and there’s this ratty old couch, and everyone was just sort of - pals.  It all just really appealed to me, so we had a short interview and it turned into a job.”

And the first formative years of AuctionArms were pretty much just like that; a bunch of guys Manny had gathered together to work on this website.  He pulled in his brother, Marcus, for customer support, and an old friend, Dan, as a business partner.  Even though the company was finding success, Manny didn’t take it too seriously, because he knew his days were numbered. 

Manny was diagnosed with kidney failure, spending three days a week on dialysis, waiting on a transplant that may never come.  At the age of 30, he was faced with the possibility of losing everything: his wife, two young sons, a growing company, and a life barely lived. 

“I was fighting for my existence. Fighting to pay the medical bills,” he says, adjusting the hat on his head.

With that weighing on him every day, Manny made sure a good portion of ‘going into the office’ was really a chance to hang out with the guys.

“Every Tuesday we were out on the boat. Fishing, wake-boarding, inner-tubing, just having fun!” Mike remembers, “I kind of took it as his ‘I might not be here tomorrow so I’m gonna make my run at it’”

Manny Dela Cruz
When Manny received a transplant from his mother-in-law in 2004, the urgency to ‘live life to fullest’ kind of died down and the guys realized there was real work that needed to be done while they were out playing.  They admit frequent soda breaks are still taken and Manny is constantly looking for ways to escape the office and have fun, as time went on, AuctionArms became less like a hobby and more like a business.

And like most businesses with friends, relationships are hurt and egos are bruised.  When AuctionArms first got started, there was the one other business partner, Dan, but as visions and opinions on the direction of the company began to splay, critical decisions had to be made.

“We couldn’t have people pulling in different directions,” Manny explained, “And some things were said that probably shouldn’t have been said; and in the end we had to go one man down.”

Letting go and buying out the fourth business partner in 2006 isn’t something that Manny, Mike, or Bob like to dwell on, but Manny says, “I think it was for the best because it clarified everyone’s vision on what direction we need to go.”

The guys took the opposite approach than most would think in settling into their job grooves.  While getting the company off the ground, Manny and Mike were just doing programming and Bob was just doing paperwork.  Now they’ve all branched out; with Manny looking for new business opportunities, Bob negotiating contracts, and Mike interfacing with sellers. 

Mike explains, “One of the neat things about working for a smaller company is the opportunity to put your hands in a lot of different aspects of the business.  It’s really exciting!” 

“My job is constantly changing,” adds Manny.

And more change came in March 2012 when the guys decided to rebrand AuctionArms.com as GunAuction.com.  The company rolled out a new website design, a new logo, tagline, and a charge to give customers an even more personal look at the people behind the company.

“You know one of the great things about this company is even though we have over half a million people visiting our site everyday, we still have customers that know Bob by name,” comments Mike, “and have my home phone number and can talk to my wife to tell me to fix something on the site.”

“The gun community is growing,” adds Bob, “Having this community, this family, come together to advance the industry is important.”

 And Manny finishes, “I want to make sure that those personal touches stay in place for the long term health of the company.”

And the family vibe they’re trying to spread isn’t contrived; these guys have been friends for over a decade and they describe their relationship like a marriage “It’s a long term partnership we have here; and after a decade of doing this together, I think, at this point, it’s working the best that it ever has and there’s a lot to look forward to.”

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