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Just call him a rule breaker.
At age 60, David R. Humble didn't look like the typical 20-something Internet entrepreneur. He was such a dinosaur that he even had roots in - gasp - manufacturing.
He started his online company closer to the Century Village retirement community in Deerfield Beach than Silicon Valley.
He wanted customers to pay a monthly subscription for his service. (Didn't anybody tell this guy you have to give away stuff for free on the Internet?)
Venture capitalists snubbed him.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the Dot Bomb Ball.
Humble's spiels (Nasdaq: EDET.OB) of Deerfield Beach made a $794,000 profit last year on $24.4 million in revenue.
The company, which has 110 employees, expects to surpass $30 million in revenue this year with earnings higher than the 5 cents a share last year.
Turns out, it pays to be Humble.
Subscribers to eDiets pay $45 for nine weeks of custom meal plans, fitness advice and 24hour telephone support and then $10 a month if they want to continue thereafter. The average subscriber lasts seven months.
The site includes a database which provides menu choices to users who can then print out a grocery list. There are a variety of chat groups and diet challenge groups plus a weekly e-mail with dieting tips.
EDiets has had 867,000 customers since it started and no shortage of potential customers. The Surgeon General said obesity is the nation's top health problem. About 40 percent of eDiets' users want to lose 50 or more pounds.
One indication of how desperate some folks are: One of the most popular message boards on eDiets is for people who are already Weight Watchers members, CFO Robert T. Hamilton said.
If there is anything Hamilton and Humble want to fatten up, it is eDiets' stock, which traded recently at $1.30 a share.
On June 12, eDiets announced it had engaged the investment banking firm of U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray to advise the board on increasing shareholder value.
"Over the last couple of months, we have had numerous parties approach us about different ideas that we might want to think about," Hamilton said.
The ideas range from joint ventures to acquisitions or raising capital.
On Tuesday,...