Background
Federman was born in 1983 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
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Ben Federman
Edit Profilefounder Chief Executive Officer
Career
He has subsequently founded other online deal sites, including Ben"s Outlet, Dynamite Time, and Shadora. He donates half of his companies" earnings to charity. As a child, he has stated “I was the guy selling stuff in the hallways of school.
In the fourth grade I had a business selling candy to kids.
I’d buy it for 10 cents and sell it for 50 cents.’’ He dropped out of school in 8th grade, later earning his high school equivalency degree. He joined the United States Army at 18 and served a tour of combat in Afghanistan.
After his military service, he moved to Brooklyn and began working at a small electronics retailer. He became familiar with profit margins for electronics, then worked as a sales representative in web sales.
He has stated “I used to spend a lot of time checking out big shopping sites like Amazon.com.
lieutenant dawned on me that, if you featured just one or two items at a time, you could get great volume pricing.”
1SaleADay
In mid-2007, he launched the online company 1SaleADay from his apartment living room. Every 24 hours the company offers items discounted 80-90% off retail in the categories of electronics, watches, jewelry, and household goods. He started with one employee, and $200,000.00 in funding.
He initially went to trade shows for much of his bargain merchandise.
Foreign the first year and a half, he purposely did not make money off a single item (loss leading). He occasionally offered items for free, and the site"s popularity increased via word of mouth and social media.
After two years, the company began to turn a profit. As of July 2011 it sells up to 30,000 items a day, and has revenues of $60 million.
As of September 2011, the website was one of the top most visited 500 websites, with over 150 million visitors per year and half a million a day.
Octagon Commerce
As of October 2011 they include Ben"s Outlet for electronics, Shadora for jewelry, Dynamite Time for watches, PaperGoods for paper, and GlassesUnlimited for eyeglasses. In late 2010, Octagon Commerce received a multi-million investment from Optima Ventures, a Miami-based private equity firm. In mid-2011, Federman began moving the firm to Miami Lakes, Southern Florida.
He interacts with customers via the 1SaleADay Facebook page, which as of September 2011 had over 300,000 fans.
In Fall of 2011 he was highlighted as one of Entrepreneur Magazine"s young millionaires of 2011. He was interviewed on Fox Business in 2011.
He has also been featured in The New York Times, The Examiner, Crain"s New York Business, Public Broadcasting Service Nightly Business Report, New York Daily News, and The Miami Herald.
