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Home audio co. in Girard growing
GIRARD
SVS was founded in a “glorified garage” in 1998; at least that’s how the company’s new owner describes its humble beginnings.
Today, the home-audio company is another example of a Mahoning Valley business that has found a niche in the increasingly diverse global marketplace.
Since it was established more than a decade ago, aimed at building better subwoofers than retail brands manufactured by heavyweights such as Panasonic and Sony, SVS today counts China, Germany, Canada and the Scandinavian countries among its top markets.
From the beginning, the company built its own products and shipped them directly, via online ordering, to customers in North America.
Now, a business model that relied on the Internet, even when it was in its infancy, has SVS sales split evenly between the U.S. and the rest of the world.
The company’s cost structure and approach to making its products is in contrast to a model employed to mass-produce subwoofers and other technology products where the “only loser is the customer,” said SVS President Gary Yacoubian.
SVS designs products, tweaks and builds mock-ups at its facility on Belmont Avenue in Girard. It cuts out the middleman by outsourcing its manufacturing to China, where company executives travel regularly to work with personnel there to master the specifics of its 14 types of subwoofers and various speaker models.
Those products then are tested at a facility in Canada before they arrive back in Girard for distribution.
“I didn’t believe it, but I saw they were right when I came in. They had a great fan base and a great product — all they needed was the business acumen,” said Yacoubian, who purchased the company a little more than two years ago. “Now its a painstaking process to preserve a good thing. The company is still a work in progress, but sales have tripled, and we’re expanding.”
Yacoubian lives in Washington, D.C., and commutes regularly to Girard to work with a core group of engineers, designers and other employees at SVS. The company itself is sort of an amalgam, with most of its workforce in Youngstown, but others who work from places such as New York and Canada.
One thing at SVS that is not lacking is the excitement among its workers about what they are doing.
Since they follow their products from design, to production and shipping, they have intimate knowledge of what their customers, many of them sound enthusiasts themselves, are receiving. This has built a cultlike following among those who purchase from the company, officials said.
Sales growth has averaged 76 percent in each of the past 14 months. SVS also has received rave reviews from industry insiders and media dedicated to audio and technology.
Yacoubian said he chose not to move the company out of Girard because he believes in Youngstown’s workforce, saying they’re committed and excited about growth. What’s more, said Ted Sindzinski, a marketing strategist at SVS, the burgeoning technology industry in areas such as Youngstown and Cleveland has made it easier to find tech-savvy professionals to work at SVS.
Eventually, Yacoubian would like to bring product manufacturing to the U.S. and continue growing. If all goes according to plan, he wants to enter the market for devices such as iPhone and iPad audio systems.