Making his way up from working in his parents’ dry cleaning store.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: When a young Krish Patel showed up at a bank in 2008 to ask for a Small Business Administration loan, he was asked whether his parents would be co-signing the loan with him. The answer was “no.”
Instead, Patel put up his house for collateral and got the $65,000 he needed to start Wireless Communications and open the first of what would eventually become a chain of nearly 50 Verizon stores spanning three different states.
“Everybody doubted me and what I was doing,” he told Greenville Online, a South Carolina-based publication. “I’ve had people call me ‘son’ or ‘kid,'” he continued.
Patel’s relentless march to entrepreneurship took its roots when his parents, Alka and Vijay, emigrated from India and opened their first business — a video store in Houston, Texas. Next was a liquor store, followed by a dry cleaner in Atlanta and then the new Sleep Inn in Travelers Rest.
Today, the elder Patels remain gainfully entrenched in the hotel sector and also help out at Wireless Communications.
“We worked, and he wanted to help, help, help at a young age,” recalled his mother. “He grew up on our business.”
Krish Patel started working in a Greenville toy store at age 13 and spent his high school years working in various retail outlets, including Best Buy, where he learned to love the expanding universe of wireless technology, according to Inc. Magazine.
While attending college at the University of South Carolina Upstate, Patel balanced his course load with stints in sales. When he started making nearly $100,000 a year by his junior year he began to consider whether staying in school was the best use of his time.
“I didn’t see the value in it,” he told Greenville Online. “I almost quit 100 times, and every time I brought that conversation home at the dinner table, my mom said you’re going to quit your job before you ever quit college.”
Serendipity intervened when Patel’s business and entrepreneurship class assigned a business plan project during his senior year and he realized he’d been given the perfect catalyst to jumpstart his entrepreneurial aspirations.
The seeds planted by that assignment eventually gave life to his first Verizon Wireless Premium Retail store, which he opened in October 2008 — five months after college graduation.
Patel’s next goal is to expand Wireless Communications to 100 stores within the next half decade, according to Inc.
In the meantime, Grenville Online reported he will be teaming up with fellow young leaders Allen Stephenson of Southern Tide and William Timmons of Swamp Rabbit Crossfit. The trio are launching a new “ad hoc peer support group” to help kindred spirits blaze their own trails to business by visiting college programs and serving as mentors for young startup leaders.
“This for me is happiness,” Patel told the South Carolina publication. “I didn’t do this to make money. I didn’t do this to be famous. I did this because I’m an entrepreneur and I love to build things and make things happen.”