Today we’d like to introduce you to Kevin Lumpkin.
Hi Kevin, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers?
I was a police officer for the Village of North Randel. In 2015 the FBI and the United State attorney office charged me with selling firearms to felons. After a week trail, I was found guilty and sentenced to 63 months in federal prison.
I arrived in federal prison on 5/3/3016 and I would not be able to leave until 5/3/2020. During that time, I started teaching the inmates about business concepts. My success was quick I was able to gain over 100 students and helped build even more business for the inmate population.
During that time, I was working on my businesses named Lumpkin’s Electronics LLC. I was able to find all my vendors/suppliers, put my business plan together, get my logo all from prison.
I was released from prison on 3/28/2020, In the middle of the pandemic and shutdown. On April 15/2020 I received my first truckload of electronics to my house and started selling from my garage. From April of 2020 until Feb of 2021, I was able to sell over 200 TVs cell phones, and computers.
On 2/28/2021 I bought a full truckload of TVs and open my store in North Olmsted, I have added to my Electronics theme a free roam virtual reality game room and we also hold networking events at my store.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I have several struggles, first is the cost of goods holds the growth of my company back. You can imagine how much a tv can cost and if you have 100s of them how do you stock they take up lots of room. Second was low advertising budget available to work with. Third was I also own/ control 10 other companies one being in commercial cleaning and this business jump from a $20,000 a year company to a $200,000 a year company in less than 8 months.
Trying to juggle time and keep the store stocked was more difficult than expected.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
My company is called Lumpkin’s Electronics, we are located at 31515 Lorain Rd North Olmsted Oh 44070. We have been open for 2 years and we sell TVs, computers, cell phones and tablets.
We have added to our store a Virtual Reality Escape room the first VR free roam game in the state of Ohio.
First, the electronic side of our business is simple. We buy electronics in big bulk so we get great deals, we research the prices of all big box retail store and reduce our prices by 20% to 30%. This make us very competitive in the market and this is what allowed us to grow.
We have add VR escape rooms to capture the people that passes by our door every day. (We are located at the soccer sports plex) This is a unique business using oculus and the meta verse we partnered with a company in Canada who provided us the software and systems to open this business. We charge $35 per person per hour and each party needs 2 to 5 people to play our games.
Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs or other resources you think our readers should check out?
Audible, I listen to a lot of business audiobooks. This list would be forever if I list books I read because I own an education business so I am always on my sites studying.
Blackentrepreneursofamerica.com
Pricing:
- $35 Per Person per hour escape room
- $40 per person per hour single-player game
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lumpkinselectronics.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lumpkinselectronics/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lumpkinselectronics
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/LumpkinsElectr2
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTikFNCi-LPj02QRbR4H3Kg
