industry news
State Sen. Rob Kane of Connecticut grew his
business amidst economic turmoil and a change in product popularity.
The Evolution of KarTele WORDS BY EDGAR ZUNIGA T
wenty years ago, the rise of the cell phone signaled the end of pagers and the slow disappearance of pay phones across the country. With cell phone technology becoming more acces- sible and more affordable for the general public, many small-business owners saw the burgeoning cell phone industry as a veritable gold mine with limitless opportunities. “You wake one day and wonder, ‘Where
did my life go?’ We’ve been plugging away all these years despite the ups and downs in the economy and the industry,” said Connecticut State Sen. Rob Kane, owner of KarTele in Waterbury, Conn. Originally named KarTele Cellular, the business marked its twentieth year in April, and Kane reflected on how much it has grown and evolved over the past two decades. “I started my business at 27,” Kane
said. “You don’t realize it as you’re going through it. You just go and do the day-to- day things, taking care of your employees. Then, you wake up one day and realize it’s been a long time.”
24 Mobile Electronics May 2014 Early on, KarTele Cellular did very little
related to 12-volt, focusing mostly on cell phones. However, the early 2000s brought about change in the industry, with carri- ers beginning to open their own stores. “We saw the writing on the wall,” Kane admitted. “Our best cell phone year was 1999. That’s when we realized that we couldn’t do this anymore and needed to diversify.” With a focus on customer service and
quality, KarTele made the transition to 12-volt and went on to establish itself as a resilient force in the community despite the recent recession, challenges from competitors large and small, and even the construction of a nearby mall. “Where my store is located, it started to really take a hit, and many of the busi- nesses had moved out to a new mall,” Kane said. “In an effort to fight back, local businesses created a Magical Retail Mile, a collaborative way to get busi- nesses together and draw traffic back to our area.” Their efforts worked, and the Magi- cal Retail Mile became the number-one
shopping area in the city, even drawing the attention of The New York Times, which spread the news across the nation. “It was a grassroots effort. We were proud of that,” Kane said. “We did every- thing we could to draw attention back to our area.”
Amid the accomplishments of the Mag-
ical Retail Mile, the Greater Waterbury Chamber of Commerce honored Kane with the Malcolm Baldrige Award for volun- teerism in 1999, and KarTele received the chamber’s Harold Webster Smith Award for Small Business of the Year in 2004. Although the Magical Retail Mile helped local businesses a great deal, Kane admitted that in Waterbury, it was both good and bad news. “The good news is that Best Buy is not coming to town. The bad news is that we have double-digit unemployment, being a niche of an area,” he said. Nevertheless, the success of the
Magical Retail Mile showcased what small-business owners could achieve when working together and uniting the community. This resonated even more
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