iRepair Squad: A Peoria Success Story

What do you do when you come to the realization that you may not be cut out for corporate America?

Well, James Scaggs, founder and CEO of iRepair Squad, decided to reshape it. As the leader of one of the region’s fastest growing companies, Scaggs has molded his company to be a fun and exciting environment for employees while maintaining its phenomenal growth and profitability.

While a student at Bradley University, Scaggs began exploring new business opportunities through the Internet. He had some success using online auction sites to sell consumer goods and was searching for a more profitable market. The Apple iPod had already become the predominant name in the personal audio player market, but they were notoriously difficult to get a hold of unless you became an authorized Apple reseller, a title typically reserved for large retail stores. That is when Scaggs realized there were an abundance of damaged iPods available on the Internet.

With a handful of these broken devices, Scaggs set out to prove that there was a profitable market for companies that could repair the iPod. In the spring of 2007, he launched his company, just in time to participate in the inaugural Project Springboard business plan competition at Bradley. The plan for iPod Repair Squad, as it was initially named, was the runaway winner, earning the company a $10,000 prize, one-year vehicle lease and a variety of other professional services, including business consulting.

Since then, iRepair Squad has grown to over 50 employees and is moving into a 30,000-square-foot facility to keep pace with the rapidly increasing demand for its products and services. iRepair Squad has also moved beyond the device for which it was named and into a variety of consumer electronic repairs and refurbishing, including Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Sony’s PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable, among others.

The company has also grown beyond just repair services. It will launch the first set of retail kiosks under a new brand to consumers across the country. The model will emphasize the economic and environmental reasons to purchase refurbished consumer electronic devices over the brand-new. iRepair Squad has also begun a strong international expansion which will make its website (www.iRepairSquad.com) available in eight different languages, the first of its kind in the industry.

This kind of rapid expansion hasn’t gone unnoticed either. Scaggs has been featured in Entrepreneur magazine and is a regularly requested speaker on the topic of entrepreneurship. iRepair Squad is also working with the Environmental Protection Agency to develop improved standards that will allow for easier repair of consumer electronic devices and cut down the amount of e-waste produced each year. PP