Kim Leone Olenicoff makes decidedly unglamorous, but useful, products.
Her Irvine-based Pond Inc. does about $1 million in yearly sales making sweat and odor absorbing pads and stain remover sponges under the Garment Guard, Under Garment Guard, Skid Out and Subtle Butt brands.
“They’re not products that people talk about, but they’re products that people use,” Olenicoff said.
Olenicoff is a multi-tasking entrepreneur with a mind that runs a mile a minute. She’s also a partner in Olenicoff & Zinser PC, an Irvine law firm that specializes in bankruptcy and estate planning.
“I like being busy,” Olenicoff said.
Maybe you recognize her name. Olenicoff is the widow of Andrei Olenicoff, the son of real estate tycoon Igor Olenicoff of Newport Beach-based Olen Properties Corp.
Andrei Olenicoff died in an auto accident in 2005.
Like her late husband, Kim Leone Olenicoff is the granddaughter of Russian immigrants. She grew up in La Habra as part of a family that owned and operated apartment buildings.
Olenicoff went to La Habra’s Sonora High School and earned a business degree from the University of Southern California, where she met her husband.
Their Russian and real estate backgrounds helped foster a friendship. The couple married in 2004.
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Olenicoff: “I like being busy” |
“We had a lot in common,” Olenicoff said. “It felt right and it was so easy to be together.”
They were married less than a year when Andrei Olenicoff died.
Dealing with the financial and legal issues was traumatic, painful and stressful, she said.
Olenicoff’s using her own experiences at Olenicoff & Zinser, which she started this year with an old colleague.
“I want to help other people deal with the issues I had to deal with,” she said.
She still is close to the Olenicoffs and often spends time with sister-in-law Natalia Olenicoff.
Olenicoff said she’s on a mission to make it on her own as she has her whole life.
In 1997, she and friends started Project Pears, a nonprofit that paired companies with high schools to sponsor SAT programs for students.
She went on to study law at USC and went to work as an associate lawyer at Westwood-based Troop Meisinger Steuber & Pasich LLP.
Olenicoff said she enjoyed practicing law but missed the creativity and challenges that come with starting a business.
She started a natural bath and body products company, 310, shortly after she began working at Troop Meisinger. 310 made lotions, face masks, hair products and other items with natural ingredients in East Los Angeles and sold to boutiques including Fred Segal.
While running 310, Olenicoff came up with the idea to make fabric, adhesive pads for absorbing under arm sweat in 2000.
Olenicoff tapped a local factory to make prototypes of her Garment Guard pads and started cold calling retail buyers.
She left Troop Meisinger to focus on 310 and Garment Guard and did legal work on the side.
In 2004, she sold 310 to a Northern California couple and switched her sole focus to Garment Guard.
These days, products from Olenicoff’s Pond company are sold through Nordstrom Inc. and Drugstore.com Inc., among other retailers.
All of her products are made in America and stored at Pond’s 1,500-square-foot headquarters, where they’re packed and shipped off to stores by contract carriers.
The company could tap manufacturers overseas to make its products cheaper but opts to keep production local because it’s faster and there’s more quality control, she said.
Video Resumes
Future Resume.com LLC is looking to reach $3 million in sales this year with Web sites that allow job seekers to spruce up their resumes with short videos and let companies hold online videoconferences.
Futureresume.com lets people make free online profiles where they can upload resumes, cover letters and a short video they record themselves or have Future Resume produce at its 1,600-square-foot office.
The site also allows companies to create profiles where they can post job listings and upload corporate videos.
The company’s greenjobinterview.com site allows businesses to hold videoconferences with up to 16 parties.
Businesses pay a minimum of $50 for half-hour video conferencing sessions. Future Resume also provides Webcams with microphones for those that don’t own video conferencing equipment.
Brothers Theo and Greg Rokos came up with the idea to start Future Resume last year.
Greg Rokos has worked in the recruiting business for 17 years running Rokos Group, a Newport Beach-based executive search firm. Theo Rokos developed sales teams for three large companies.
Both said they came to understand the hiring needs of employers and job seekers.
Many companies spend a lot of money on the interview process from airfare to hotel stays for potential candidates, they said.
“The Web sites can help employers save money and time,” Greg Rokos said.
The Rokos have self-financed the business and are mum on how much they had to invest.
Future Resume has 11 employees and could have to hire more workers to handle sales, Theo Rokos said.
