How 2-Man Shop Landed Six-Figure ‘Cake Boss’ Job

It’s common when starting a business to have visions of grandeur. All too often, eager entrepreneurs dive into their new endeavors expecting a rush of clientele to stampede their storefronts.

In the custom electronics installation industry, these visions of greatness typically include working in huge, custom-built houses; installing elaborate, bells-and-whistles systems; and catering to customers who willingly give them carte blanche on the project.

In reality, it usually takes years to achieve this sort of business nirvana. To expect it to happen overnight is a big, fat pipe dream. Even CE pros who have been fortunate enough to reach the big leagues have recently had to scale down their grand business plans to weather the finicky economy.

Sweating the Small Stuff
Chima and Abiose Gale, brothers and co-owners of 360 Media Innovations, Maplewood, N.J., entered the wild and wily world of custom electronics design and installation in 2008, when the market was at one of its lowest points.

“New builds were way down in our area and everyone was scrambling for business,” says Chima. Still, the intrepid duo thought they could make a name for themselves … eventually.

“We fully expected to have a tough road ahead of us,” says Abiose. He was right. While the jobs were rolling in, thanks to subcontract work from Zip Express Installation and online sites like Service Magic and Install It Today, the projects weren’t exactly the type that most CE pros would drool over.

Together, the duo logged in a slew of little, moderately profitable jobs, mostly hanging flat-panel TVs for $250 a pop (it’s a far cry from the six-figure system they installed recently into the home of Buddy Valastro, who stars as the Cake Boss on TLC). Occasionally, they would set up a surround-sound system or a basic whole-house audio system.

Photos: How 2-Man Shop Landed Six-Figure ‘Cake Boss’ Gig

Paying their Dues
In its first year of business, 360 Media Innovations completed 200 jobs, most of which was generated by a contract with servicemagic.com. “It was expensive to join, but it got our feet in the door,” Chima says.

As “small” as that door was, the Gale brothers were happy to be inside. “Those little jobs were invaluable to the success of our business. As a former regional sales manager for Nevo by Universal Electronics, I had seen many large installation jobs, and I knew we simply [weren’t at that level of expertise] yet. We needed lots of practice, and those smaller sales gave us the experience and confidence we would need to move on to bigger and better things. We put ourselves through boot camp so we’d be ready when the big jobs did eventually come our way.”