Slow-Growing Site Offers Connectivity Equipment

In 1997, Tony Casazza, president of Atcom Services Inc. -- a consulting firm involved with the design and installation of fiber optic data communications and other computer network cabling systems -- decided he wanted to become an online retailer in this budding industry.

And he's tried to avoid the pitfalls of growing too fast or borrowing too much money—two things he felt doomed many dot-com companies in the beginning.

Since its founding in 1991, Atcom built up an extensive contact base running from technical tutoring classes and having articles printed in technical publications.

Six years later, Casazza realized nonprofessionals could install this equipment themselves and designed to set up the Web site, initially called www.atcomservices.com, to both sell the products and begin instructing customers on how to use properly them through tutorials housed on the site.

In 1999, the name was changed to LANshack.com to better reflect its purpose.

The Clark, NJ company caters to several thousand customers in 150 countries including Fortune 500 companies, various governmental agencies and schools, says Casazza.

LANshack.com sells such products as fiber optic cable voice and data recorders, jacks, routers and the like. Along with them, the site offers tutorials on installing the products. By the early days of the new millennium, LANShack was generating enough revenue to allow the company to sell off the cabling, installation and design portion of the business and focus directly on selling, says Casazza.

Then came the dot-com bust. Casazza credits his conservative strategy for staying afloat.

"We resisted the temptation to over expand when the dot-com frenzy was in full swing," he says. "It was during the lean times of the industry when we focused on new product development and overall efficiency."

Besides, he points out that trying to expand to quickly eats into profits and he's always tried to maintain a profitable company.