Mighty Midsized Companies: How Leaders Overcome 7 Silent Growth Killers

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Strategy Tinkering at the Top

In early 2000, Taki Skouras, Joseph Brown, and Jaime Brown started Cellairis to sell wireless phone accessories, mostly cell phone cases. With very little start-up cash, they looked for inexpensive retail sites. They found them in those carts that sit in the middle of shopping malls.

By 2005, Cellairis had 150 stores (some operating as franchises) in malls, and approximately $50 million in system-wide annual revenue.

From nothing to $50 million in five years is phenomenal growth, and in 2006 the founders hired an experienced president to manage it.

The new president immediately began tinkering with Cellairis’s strategy. He found a wireless provider, AMP’d Mobile, a reseller for the major carriers. AMP’d wanted ...