G. David Cartwright helped start Anaheim computer bag company Targus Inc. hack in the 1980s, helping build it into a market leader by the mid-1990s.By 2001, Cartwright said he grew frustrated with the direction the company was taking, including plans for cutting sales staff.
So he announced his resignation as president at a summer board meeting.
But Cartwright didn't go far.
Within a year, he got a chance to take on Targus with his own company focused on computer bags, Anaheim-based Mobile Edge LLC, which sits within eyeshot of his former company.
Mobile Edge couldn't be just another Targus, Cartwright said. The company has sought to one-up Targus on style and verve with computer bags for women and young folks.
The company does about $20 million a year in sales. It sells computer carrying cases, backpacks, brief-cases and other items.
Cartwright said he took away a lesson from Targus: don't run a company without majority ownership.
He said he'd hand over the business to someone else if it gets to the size of Targus, which has $500 million in yearly sales.
Mobile Edge got some notice with what Cartwright called the first computer bags geared for women back in 2003. Cartwright plays up Mobile Edge's niche with retailers such as Best Buy Inc. and Circuit City Stores Inc.The company also does work for other manufacturers, including hip surf and skate clothing companies. Cartwright said.
Mobile Edge's bags are fashion with function, Cartwright said. They're tough and have extra features, such as a personal digital assistant protector that keeps thieves from using wireless connections to steal personal data.
Targus isn't sitting by. It's rolled out its own line of computer bags for women and young people as it seeks to shed its stodgy image.
The company is under new leadership with Roger Murphy, formally of Gillette, now part of Procter & Gamble Co.
"The consumer is becoming more discerning," Murphy said earlier this year. "They're going to be more particular about the case or the accessory."
It took Cartwright several months to start Mobile Edge after leaving Targus in 2001. The main bag supplier for Targus in South Korea had lost some business from the company and needed to get some idled production lines running again, he said.
So Cartwright said he started working with the South Korean supplier, which got a minority stake in Mobile Edge.
He brought on some former Targus folks who knew all the players in the market. Then he said he went to work on getting retailers to carry his bags.
Cartwright admits he was a bit cocky.
"I assumed with the good relationships that we were going to walk in and get shelf space," he said. "That didn't happen."
Cartwright and his team had to sit down again and figure out what they were going to do, he said.
"We needed a niche." he said. "We needed an entry point."
About that time Mobile Edge's team ran across a study showing a growing number of women were buying computer bags.
Cartwright and his team knew how to make conservative, dependable bags-not stylish ones for women.
"Five guys were not the guys to build it," he said.
Mobile Edge decided to go to young, hip designers by lapping South Korea's Hongik University, which has an exchange program with Pasadena's Art Center College of Design, a regional hub for Orange County's apparel, automotive and other designers.
The school in South Korea is near Mobile Edge's production site.
The company asked for several ideas and hired designers based on the best ones. Mobile Edge also got help from some women retail buyers.
The first line of bags came out in 2003. It includes slim bags in flashy colors such as pink that look like they belong in the handbag section of Macy's, not Circuit City.
Mobile Edge passed on advertisements in PC Magazine and other techie publications. Instead, it put every ad dollar into InStyle, Cosmopolitan and Lucky.
The company has sought to adopt a bit'of OC flare by working with "lifestyle" companies-shorthand for surfwear and other trendy clothing designers. Mobile Edge has hired workers from those companies, Cartwright said.
For hipsters. Mobile Edge has "messenger bags" that look like something out of Banana Republic. The bags have been a hit on college campuses, according to Cartwright.
Actual electronic gadgets are a small part of Mobile Edge's sales-about 10%. Cartwright said he hopes to expand that with products such as a device that helps find local wireless' Internet "hot spots."
Eventually, he said he'd like to see such products grow to half of sales.
That's more like what Targus does.
As for his former company, Cartwright has cut the strings with Targus. When private equity firm Fenway Partners Inc. bought Targus for $383 million last year, Cartwright said he sold his shares in the company he helped start.
