After topping the charts at number 1 in a recent Toronto Globe
and Mail - published survey of the 200 most successful e-businesses
in Canada, the Saskatoon-based brother team, Wendell and Barry
Willick, are taking the dot-com business to new heights.
Being recognized as the No. 1 best managed and most promising
"dot-com" company in all of Canada was an honor for the Willick
brothers who say this is something they will remember for
the rest of their lives.
"To stand out from our competitors in the dynamic dot-com
world is a real tribute and reward to the hard work, diligence
and vision that we and our entire team have shared since going
into business a few years ago," adds the brothers.
When the brother team identified an opportunity to use the
Internet to connect buyers and sellers of heavy equipment,
Point2.com was founded in the fall of 1996. As development
proceeded, Willick and Willick realized that the technology
could be pushed further, allowing sellers to leverage their
data to produce many marketing opportunities.
The Point2 Heavy Equipment System is a user-friendly Internet
interface software application that enables users to maintain
and coordinate inventory, sales and marketing and can be accessed
and maintained from anywhere in the world.
Wendell Willick, CEO, says as he tried to introduce the listing
service to heavy equipment dealers, he realized that most
of them were not technologically savvy. "Most of these people
were not zooming around the Internet. To have them use the
Internet to plug in data, take photos with digital camera,
resize them and then save as a compressed format so it wouldn't
be too big to send over the Internet, was too much to ask
for," says Willick.
Wendell and his brother Barry Willick, President, knew the
only way they were going to make their online business work
was if they developed software applications that simplified
the work for their clients and that's precisely what the brothers
did.
It didn't take long for the business to take flight. "All
of a sudden we became a development house of world-wide heavy
equipment applications that helped non-technical people interface
with the Internet," Willick explains.
"Barry is an incredible programmer. He was really the original
architect of our technology and he was the one who put all
the grunt work into the programming and did a fabulous job
at it," Willick (Wendell) enthuses.
Willick says most clients utilizing the software application
are U.S. companies with $100 to $200 million dollars in revenues.
These companies include heavy equipment giants such as Holt
Company of Texas, Hoss Equipment Co., and RDO Equipment Co.
In addition, Willick notes they have also licensed their technology
into a new sector to be used in the emergency vehicle re-sell
market. "This is actually a co-venture as the licensing agreement
stipulates we receive 25 per cent of the company. This is
a great example of how our software application can be used
in other vertical markets," says Willick (Wendell).
The Idea
In 1993, long before the Internet was thriving, Willick kicked
back with a mining friend over a couple of beers. That's when
the idea hit him: there's money to be made with the re-sell
of heavy equipment. "My friend, who was a senior executive
for a mining company in Manitoba, was telling me that a mine
he knew of was shutting down and they were just leaving millions
of dollars worth of mining equipment in the ground. There
was no other use for it locally and they didn't know how to
market it," says Willick.
Willick (Wendell), an entrepreneur living in Saskatoon, spoke
with his brother Barry, an Ottawa-based computer programmer,
about the possibility of using computer technology to move
this equipment. But the technology simply wasn't there at
the time.
With innovations in technology, the brothers discussed the
possibilities again, and in 1996 Point2 Internet Systems was
born. The Willicks formed a partnership with three other men,
including Wendell's mining friend, and two others from the
forestry and agriculture industries. Point2 Internet Systems
was the first company ever to do online auctions of heavy
equipment.
"Although Point2.Com is not the only exchange that auctions
heavy equipment today," says Willick, "we established a strong
presence in the niche before the emergence of serious competition,
and we are well ahead of the game. When it comes to inventory,
sales and marketing management and the interface technology,
we don't see anyone coming close to us quickly."
Point2 currently employs 25 full-time professionals in two
locations. Head office is located in Saskatoon, with a sales
office in Vancouver. More than half of their employees are
systems development professionals.
MNP and Point2 Get Wired
As the business grew, the partners saw the need for a
highly qualified CA firm and people who had the vision and
expertise to guide us them through their rapid business expansion
process. MNP, particularly Peter Clark, had initially provided
Willick with services in the past, so the choice was obvious.
Saskatoon MNP partners Les Wall, CA and Les Cannam, CA, quickly
joined the team.
"The initial services MNP rendered for the company dealt with
assistance with incorporation, design and implementation of
accounting systems, CCRA registrations, year end un-audited
financial statements, personal and corporate tax planning
and corporate tax returns, along with ongoing weekly business
consulting advice on a number of different issues," adds Cannam.
And Willick says that Wall and Cannam have been instrumental
in assisting the firm to reach new heights.
"They helped us with the preparation of a substantial business
plan and financing proposal to take our firm to the market,
assisted us with the negotiation and deal structuring process
with interested investors to optimize tax and financing strategies,
reviewed and recommended changes to all legal documents before
execution and prepared various interim audited financial statements
to comply with the SEC regulations related to international
reporting," says Willick.
As for the future, The Point2 Heavy Equipment Systems has
also captured the attention of the European market. "We've
started to sell our system in Europe and have a couple of
major clients already," says Willick, who adds that they are
now hiring some people in Europe to further enhance their
market share.
Willick concludes, "Our business partnership with MNP has
been exceptional and we would not be where we are today without
their continued ongoing expertise."
Meyers Norris Penny Publications, Beyond
Numbers, September 2000.