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Attilio D'Agostino can calculate very quickly the amount of outside capital that he's taken into his company. It's exactly the same as the amount he owes, or has ever owed, on business loans.
And it all comes to a grand total of zero.
On the other hand, the amount he has gradually reinvested in the business that he's slowly built the last 10 years is more than $3 million.
"I never wanted to be stuck behind the eight ball in terms of debt," says D'Agostino, 29, owner of Attilio's Discount Supplements, a nutritional supplement retailer, and its mail order/Internet division, FatFreeCombo.com ([email protected]). "I didn't want to give up any control of the business to investors or burden the company with debt. I always wanted to know that I had the money to take it to the next level.
"I never bought anything on terms. I always paid cash-on-delivery. Other business people may think that's crazy, but I always slept very well at night."
Attilio's Discount Supplements now includes six stores in the St. Lows area, which bring in sales of between $105,000 to $120,000 weekly. FatFreeCombo.com brings in approximately $85,000 to $100,000 a week. D'Agostino expects sales for the two ventures to top $10 million this year.
His career in fitness and nutrition began in 1991 while he was working as a legislative aide in California. D'Agostino, who has Cystic Fibrosis - a chronic lung disease, decided to hire a personal Wainer and put himself on an exercise regimen.
"I was very sick, and I felt that if I got in shape, I would be much healthier," he says. "I grew to love working out so much that I decided that I would take a big risk and leave my career in the legislature and go to school in Indiana, where they have a really good physiology department, and study sports medicine or something like that."
D'Agostino moved to Bloomington, Ind., but he never made it to Indiana University, at least not as a student. Instead, he applied for a job as a personal trainer at a fitness center in Bloomington hoping to work for a year until he was eligible to enroll at IU as an Indiana resident.
At the fitness center, D'Agostino's...