Young Business Delivers by Charles H. Loos for the Irvine Spectrum News

Rob Ukropina (pronounced U-crow-pea-na) learned the hard way what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur.

He failed the first time out, he recalls, because he didn't know enough about the business he was trying to do.

But he got off the floor and tried again, this time with a business he and a partner knew something about.

His latest effort, and Irvine-based regional delivery service called Overnite Express, has completed its third year of business, a critical test for start-up companies.

Overnite Express is profitable, Ukropina said, with sales for the privately held firm above the $1 million mark and growing. And Ukropina feels confident enough of his firm's future to tweak the nose of the competition. He has moved his headquarters next door to a Federal Express office on MacArthur Boulevard near John Wayne Airport. "There's a learning curve that most start-ups go through," Ukropina observed during a recent interview. "There are so many things other than marketing to do in order to build the business. "But by the end of the third year, you should have most of the nitty-gritty things you need to do out of the way and you can concentrate more on marketing and serving your customers." "It's so magical to reach that three year milestone -- I can't tell you. "You're not looked upon as some sort of fly-by-night company anymore. People begin to take you seriously. You have a track record that you can talk about to potential customers. Banks will talk to you. The SBA (Small Business Administration) will talk to you. Customers start coming to you."

Ukropina, 42, and a partner who has since gone on to other things, started Overnite Express in the middle of the recent recession in the belief they could fill a niche beneath the big delivery services -- FedEx, UPS and Airborne.

The niche is regional delivery. They would deliver anywhere in eight Southern California counties overnight. (Overnite Express now provides delivery throughout the entire state of California) They would do it with later pickup times and earlier delivery times than the big guys. And they would do it for much less cost.

So far, Overnite Express has delivered on all counts, Ukropina maintains.

"Basically, we're able to do it because we're a regional operation and we don't have fixed overhead -- a fleet of airplanes and big hubs -- to support," he said.

The "region" for overnight delivery includes Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, San Bernardino, Riverside and Imperial counties.

The prices: $8.75 for letters or parcels under one pound, $19 for 10 pounds, $34 for 100 pounds. All beat the prices charged by the big guys, according to Ukropina.

More significant, he believes, is that Overnite Express picks up as late as 9 p.m. and can still guarantee delivery by 9 the following morning.

Ukropina and his current partner, Doug Schneider, believe FedEx and other large delivery services tend to establish artificial shipment deadlines that everyone must rush to meet.

"But everybody knows those deadlines don't necessarily have anything to do with the end of the business day," Ukropina said. "We all work later than 5 p.m."

That's why Overnite Express puts so much emphasis on being flexible as possible about pick-up times.

And the name of the game, Ukropina emphasized, is service.

"We will do whatever it takes to get the package delivered correctly," he said flatly.

As an example, he cited what he calls the case of the missing cellular phone.

"We were delivering a cellular phone to a guy in Santa Monica. The driver delivered the package to his place of business, but before it got to him, the phone disappeared.

Understandably, the gentleman was upset. I paid for the stolen phone, plus a new one, which I delivered myself.

"He was impressed and he called the president of the cellular phone company and told him about it."

"Now we move all of that cellular company's phones."

Ukropina grants that he took unusual steps to satisfy the customer in this case. He also grants that fortunately, his efforts paid off.

"But I wasn't looking for that. I was trying to make things right and my point is this: This is a service business. If I'm not willing to spend a couple of hundred bucks to make things right for my customers -- any customer -- then I'm terribly short-sighted and I don't belong in this business."

The business is "just-in-time" shipping and delivery. For many efficiency-minded companies of the 90's, it's the movement of anything that can't be faxed -- products, parts and equipment, even medical supplies such as blood -- only when they're needed. It avoids the costs of warehousing, stockpiling or otherwise maintaining inventories.

For professionals -- attorneys, accountants, architects and consultants, or printers and advertising agencies -- it's the speedy movement of documents too bulky or too numerous to be moved electronically.

Before becoming an entrepreneur, Ukropina managed a division of a financial printing company. He was able to use the relationships he had built there when he began marketing the services of Overnite Express.

As a result, Overnite's customer list includes, among others, more than 40 law firms and about three dozen companies involved in various aspects of the graphic arts.

At peak times, such as the holiday season in December, everyone drives -- even the president of the company, laughed Ukropina, who carries the dual title of president and chief driver. Schneider is the company's chief financial officer.

Although Overnite Express will deliver throughout the eight Southern California counties, it concentrates its pickup points in what it considers key areas in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego Counties with high concentrations of professional firms or manufacturing companies that would use its services.

And, yes, everything is computerized. "Because of technology and the perception of technology today, if you're not up to speed, you're not in business," Ukropina observed.

Our computer let's us know where the package is at all times -- when it was picked up, when it was out, the weight, where it was delivered, what time it was delivered, who signed for it, and so forth.

"And all that goes to billing so that can be done electronically. And I can get a printout so that now I have a marketing tool that I can take to a customer and say, 'This is how our service is working for you, Mr. Customer, or this is how it could work for you, Mr. Potential Customer."

Overnite Express already has two part-time employees handling shipping chores at two big law firms it serves.

I can cost justify putting an employee in their offices four hours a day based on the number of packages they're shipping," he said. To Ukropina, that's service

And why hasn't someone else started a regional delivery service like Overnite Express? Well one reason is that "It's damn tough to do," Ukropina responded. "You're talking about going against the giants like FedEx with billions in sales. That's a little intimidating.

"It's not that we're any great threat to them. We're not interested in building even a $50 million company here. What we'd like to do is build a nice little $10 million company that's known for its tremendously high level of customer service.

We're in this for the long haul and we know that, to go against the giants, we have to be better than they are at the regional level.

"If we aren't, we don't have anything. End of discussion."

By Charles H. Loos February 15, 1996

Irvine Spectrum News