Founder and CEO International Checkout
Saskia Strick was a high-school educated, former international fashion model from the Netherlands whose claim to fame prior to age 26 was starring in a Milli Vanilli music video. But after identifying an unexploited market for American merchandisers to sell overseas, she launched International Checkout, Inc. in 2003. Today, Saskia is the founder and CEO of the leading global e-commerce solution projected to earn $10 million in revenue this year. Saskia’s Los Angeles-based company won The Stevie Award for Most Innovative Company of the Year for Women in Business in 2008 and Saskia herself was named Executive of the Year – Business Services in 2009. International Checkout was named one of Inc. 500’s 2009 Top 10 Women-Run Companies and earned the #61 spot on its 2009 Fastest-Growing Companies list.
At 17 years-old, Saskia hopped a train to Milan to pursue a modeling career. After traveling the world, she followed a romantic relationship to the United States, ended up in Los Angeles, and retired from modeling at age 26. Unfortunately, the romance didn’t work out, and Saskia found herself a single mother with no job and no money. Although she was employed managing a horse ranch outside L.A., Saskia decided that it was “time to get serious and become independent.” She was tired of working for someone else.
With her overseas friends constantly requesting that she purchase items and ship them to Europe, Saskia realized that American retailers weren’t shipping world-wide. This gave her the idea for International Checkout.
International Checkout provides U.S. retailers with worldwide shipping, guarantees against fraud, and offers world class multi-lingual customer service for US retailers. In addition, International Checkout handles all returns for the merchants. The premise is simple; a customer visits an online store, selects items for purchase and puts them in the cart. With a click of the International Checkout button, the order is sent to Saskia’s site for processing and fulfillment. International Checkout takes care of calculating real-time pricing for shipping, duties and taxes.
From the first day International Checkout was live, the website began generating orders. Today there are over 240 American merchants registered with International Checkout, including DrMartins.com, bebe.com and many of Internet Retailer’s Top 500.
Up until this year, International Checkout did not advertise, so to promote her services Saskia attended trade shows. News about her innovative business spread, especially among merchants who asked each other, “How are you selling internationally?”
Saskia launched the International Checkout website with just $800. Her phenomenal six year growth, including a 2,191.2% increase during 2005 – 2008, has been achieved without a single investor. The company has always been privately held by Saskia and is completely debt-free.
Her best moment with International Checkout occurred on Christmas Eve 2007. Saskia says the company was so busy after Black Friday that she never had a chance to look at the books until December 24. She discovered that International Checkout had done one million dollars in six weeks. Saskia thought, “This is amazing!”
This summer, Saskia was invited to Egypt by the Corporate Ambassador’s Program to speak at a women business owners’ conference called Vital Voices. She felt it was very rewarding to not only make friends, but also help ladies get their businesses off the ground.
In addition to owning International Checkout, Saskia just launched My American Shipper, a parcel forwarding service from the United States to any location worldwide.
What we learned from Saskia: “One of my mistakes was hiring the wrong people. I’d talk to someone and think, ‘You’ll do’ and then hire them. My advice is take the time to select the right people, especially for higher-level, key roles. Don’t hire from off the street. Hire those who you know and have done business with and respect.”
No Easy Street
“In an entrepreneurial career, it’s all challenging and nothing’s easy. Understand that in the first few years, there may be very little money coming in. It’s not going to be a ride in the park and there’s no quick way to make things happen. I worked 18 hours a day, every day for the first three years.”
Be Yourself
“Don’t be intimidated in a male business world. Don’t differentiate yourself by thinking of yourself as a woman, be an equal. Anything a man can do, I can do.”
Risky Business
“I’m fortunate that I didn’t have any major setbacks with International Checkout. I began very cautiously and didn’t take risks. Since I only used my own money, I was able to steer away from anything uncertain. If I had sought investors, I would have grown faster, which may also have meant more risks.”
This Featured Lady was profiled by Megan L. Reese, WORDrobe™ Stylist for Her Write Image in West Grove, PA.
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