Wishes Really Do Come True

Written by Tracie Grimes

Ever been on a home tour, spotted the most beautiful hand-painted molding you’ve ever seen, and thought, “I Wish I had that.” Maybe it was a fabulous fountain or ornate mirror that had you yearning. But where do you find such treasures?

Jim and Robert Welch have an app(titude) for that. And for the past 10-plus years, this father/son team has been fulfilling design dreams of homeowners, decorators, contractors, and architects through their cyber-showroom, WishIHadThat.com.

And it all started with closets, posters, and Monopoly games.

“Strange things happen to a guy when he’s about to turn 50,” laughs Jim. “I was running a pretty lucrative business, Closet King, where I was designing and installing custom closets; but as I started looking at 50 square in the eye, I thought, ‘there’s gotta be an easier way to make a living!’ The work was just so physical—I felt like my body was giving out one joint at a time.”

Jim decided to give the Internet a go, thinking that he could sell customized closet systems he had designed over the years directly to his customers and expand his company’s capabilities while saving some wear and tear on his joints. But as he started shopping around for web designers, he realized that it would practically cost him an arm and a leg just to get his website designed. That’s when Jim decided to call his son Rob, then an engineering student at Cal Tech, and pick his brain.

“Keep in mind this was in 1997-’98 and web design was still an up-and-coming business so it was quite a bit more expensive back then than it is now. But Rob came up with this fantastic 400-page design for only $400; a fraction of the cost other web designers had quoted me, and I was thrilled!”

Having solved the problem of developing a web design at a reasonable cost, Jim started to tackle the next obstacle: the name.

“Of course I wanted ‘ClosetKing.com,’ but someone had already purchased the domain name. So I just started doodling around with words and ideas for names and came up with ‘wish I had that.’ It was available, so I bought the domain.”

Jim was so excited about the new venture and so blown away by the awesome job Rob had done on the website, he started telling friends and customers. “Before I knew it, they were asking Rob to design sites for them.

“Then something else occurred to us...what if we started hosting these websites under the umbrella of WishIHadThat.com? We decided to follow that line of thinking and launched a portal website that was really a precursor to a search engine like Google, where people could search for Bakersfield and Kern County area restaurants, schools, sports, travel. The site featured hundreds of local businesses, resource links, etc.”

Now it was time to get the word out. So, armed with a computer, keyboard, and mouse, Jim headed to the Kern County Fair to launch his new brainchild. He showed thousands of fair-goers how they could find things quickly and easily by going through the WishIHadThat.com portal and clicking on the featured sites they were hosting. And with every click on a site entered through WishIHadThat.com, Jim made a few cents.

“By early 2000, WishIHadThat kept me so busy, I decided it was time to retire from Closet King altogether and focus my time completely to running and marketing WishIHadThat. And Rob decided to trade engineering for accounting and come to work for WishIHadThat.com. He’s always been a sharp kid!” Jim laughs, patting Rob on the back.

It was a major life decision for Rob, changing his focus from the technical side of business to managing the bottom line.

“You just never know what’s going to happen when you decide to switch career paths,” Rob says, catching his father’s eye as he reflects on his decision to leave Cal Tech, “there’s a certain amount of risk; but I definitely picked the right road.”

The Welch’s path to building a strictly portal site took a bit of a turn when they encountered a road bump as they were starting up.

“We needed to increase our site’s traffic (since that’s how we make money), so we had planned a big radio campaign and huge print campaign in the local paper after our launch at the fair,” Jim says. “The paper said they wouldn’t run our advertising since they saw us as competition for Bakersfield.com, so we had to do a little regrouping, re-thinking, re-focusing.

“Commissions from sales and ‘pay-per-click’ agreements with those on our sponsor links is where we decided to put our focus, turning our site into a retail site rather than just a resource site. And the first product we put up on our site was posters.”

Poster sales went through the roof almost immediately, and it got Jim thinking again. If selling posters could bring in money, why not try selling other things?

“Well, it all sounded good to me! But the one ‘sticky’ point was that I needed to put in additional capital money, which I didn’t quite have at the time. But I just knew the risk would be worth it! My wife, however, was not as sure,” Jim says, lowering his chin.

“That’s when I decided that if I gave Dad a little seed money and bought into the business, I would actually be saving my parents’ marriage,” Rob interjected.

“The best $20,000 he ever spent, and the cheapest buy-in I can think of,” Jim retorts.

Monopoly games were the next big push for WishIHadThat.com (“If I never have to wrap another Monopoly game in a cold garage at Christmastime, it’ll be too soon for me!” notes Jim), followed by fountains, statues, artwork, and the over 38,000 pages of décor and architectural items you’ll find on WishIHadThat.com today.

“We now maintain thousands of keywords on various search engines through the website and have become an Industry Partner of ASID (American Society of Interior Designers) to supply distinctive decorative products to the industry. We also started importing products (mainly from China, India, and Thailand) in 2002, so we started a new division, RoJico Trading Company (short for Rob/Jim Company), which we operate as an independent wholesale company,” Jim explains, adding that RoJico grew quickly and now has representation in almost every state.

But even with their company’s rapid growth, it’s been “touch and go” more than once over the past 10 years, Jim points out.

“It was definitely a ‘roll of the dice’ in terms of whether we’d make it or not,” Jim admits, “but timing made our business.”

“And adaptability is what keeps us alive,” Rob adds. “For instance, when the economy took such a hit and we weren’t selling $10,000 water features anymore, we quickly shifted the focus from high-end products to more inexpensive lines.”

“We try to react quickly to the likes and dislikes of our customers, but we also have the advantage of being able to design products at a reasonable price for our customers and build them on-site or outsource them to keep the costs low,” Jim says.

A witness to the playful banter and ability to finish each other’s thoughts quickly sees the symbiotic relationship between the Welch men as the driving force behind WishIHadThat.com and its 11-person staff. And their ability to, at times, “agree to disagree” but move on with the business, is one thing both men point to as a key to their success.

A self-proclaimed pessimist and “glass half empty” kind of guy, Rob values Jim’s enthusiasm and different way of looking at things.

“This man right here,” Rob begins, jabbing his thumb towards Jim, “is the risktaker in the business. Dad is very optimistic, gets very excited about new product lines; a very ‘glass half-full’ kinda guy. Our business wouldn’t exist without Dad.”

“Oh, he says that now, but when I really wanted to push those Michelangelo ceiling designs, you weren’t so ‘yeah, Dad, your ideas always turn out great!” laughs Jim.

“OK, Dad—mom and I were wrong about that one,” Rob admits, adding that he’s still surprised the huge 67-inch by 87-inch ceiling medallions would sell so well.

“Rob fought me on that one,” Jim adds with a smile, “but sometimes I win.”

Article appeared in our 26-6 Issue - February 2010