Jack Martinez is switching gears after selling his Fly Industries LLC, the maker of the Black Fly sunglasses, earlier this year.
Martinez founded Backward Circle Bike Co. in Irvine, which sells “fixie” style bikes that are used for tricks and have just one gear.
Backward Circle imports the bikes from Taiwan and then hand paints them with its own styles that include skulls, scantily clad women and camouflage, among other images.
It hopes to open its third store, called Fixxd, by the end of this year. It already has locations in Balboa and Fountain Valley and sells to a handful of other retailers.
Martinez said he wants to capitalize on a trend that is putting the 1980s-style bikes back in fashion.
“This has all the traits of a new sport,” he said.
Competitors Schwinn Bikes, part of Canada’s Dorel Industries Inc., and Specialized Bicycle Components Inc. in Morgan Hill, sell similar models.
But Martinez said he’s the only company that is dedicated specifically to this type of bike.
Due to government regulations, Backward Circle has to import and sell the bikes with the reflectors and breaks intact, but most buyers end up taking them off to allow for better tricks, Martinez said.
The bikes sell for about $550 retail, with distributors buying them from Backward Circle for about $350.
Backward Circle operates out of the same 8,500-square-foot space that Black Flys did in Irvine. It employs six people.
Martinez sold Fly Industries in February for an undisclosed price to the Japanese company Carrozzeria Japan Co., which keeps an office in Carson.
A part of the deal, Martinez is serving as a creative director for Black Flys, which has $45 million in annual sales.
Slimmer Packaging
Cardboard box maker Scope Packaging Inc. in Orange has slimmed down to handle slower business from its customers.
But this isn’t the first down economy the nearly 50-year-old, family-owned company has seen, so it’s confident sales will bounce back.
Scope Packaging designs and makes boxes for companies such as Issaquah, Wash.-based retailer Costco Wholesale Corp., which used them for its own brands; Sherman Oaks-based Fruit Growers Supply Co.; and Fullerton-based Houdini Inc., a maker of gift baskets.
Scope Packaging’s sales of about $15 million are expected to be off 20% from last year as many of its retail customers struggle with a weak economy.
In response, Scope has cut its staff by 5% to about 50 and has trimmed salaries.
But the company hopes to hire those workers back and give bonuses to make up for lost wages when the economy recovers.
“This is the hardest economy we’ve seen, but we plan to give back when things get better,” said Cindy Baker, part owner and vice president.
The company has picked up the slack by relying more on temporary workers to handle work as needed.
Baker’s mother, Judy Flinn, serves as chief ex-ecutive, and Mike Flinn, her brother, is president.
The company has managed to save some money as the cost of paper goods has dropped from a year ago.
Scope competes with many small companies across the country, each trying to gain an edge with designs.
“We try to keep a niche with our customers,” Baker said. “We don’t try to be everything to everyone.”
Some of its largest competitors include International Paper Co. in Memphis and Georgia-Pacific LLC in Atlanta, which also is a supplier for Scope.
Math Skills
TeaCHildMath is an Irvine-based startup founded by Eugenia Francis that is trying to help children learn multiplication tables.
The former University of California, Irvine, English instructor initially created her pattern recognition system in the 1980s for her son, who was struggling with math.
It worked so well that after Francis retired, she turned her idea into a business. Francis wrote “Teach Your Child the Multiplication Tables: Fast, Fun & Easy,” which has sold more than 7,000 copies online since 2006.
Loaded with graphics that help children see the bigger picture of order with the multipli-cation tables, the 170-page workbooks sell for about $20 each. She said the book has been most popular with families that home-school their children or for children with learning disabilities.
“I want that ‘aha’ factor where you discover the pattern,” Francis said.
She since has expanded with other products.
Launching the business didn’t come easy.
Francis initially began promoting her book in various online forums, giving away 1,000 copies to people just to get the word out. A recent profile in the Wall Street Journal has given the company a boost, she said.
The next step for the business is to find an investor, she said.
Ultimately she wants to do more in international sales by translating it into several languages, she said.
She also hopes to expand the business into deals with larger retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Office Depot Inc. and Target Corp.
Francis grew up in Mexico City with her parents who ran their own road-construction machinery import business.
“I was raised to be an entrepreneur but didn’t get into it until I retired,” she joked.
