SALT LAKE CITY – Like all civilizations, every company starts small. The one sculpted by Victoria Karpos and her husband in Salt Lake City has spread far beyond the Aegean, thanks to a little help from the Internet.
“We imported sculptures and artifacts from Greece,” said Karpos. “We sold to little gift shops that had the Greek kind of historical equipment.”
For them, every step meant breaking new ground to sell statues.
Now you can find everything on their shelves, from David to Diana.
But sometimes building a business requires a little clairvoyance.
It was a long time ago, in the old days of the internet, that an idea came out of Victoria’s husband’s mind.
“My husband Vasily was just messing with the internet,” Karpos said. “He noticed these dotcoms were selling out at the time and typed in ‘statues.com’.”
That fateful day in the mid-1990s was a turning point.
“We were slowly getting inquiries about ‘Could you do this for me? Could you maybe do 10 of these for me? ‘”Said Karpos.
As for the cost of buying this domain name, Karpos couldn’t help but laugh – she thinks it cost her about $ 10.
She attributed her success to her online presence, adding that it was difficult for a company like hers to survive just by selling locally.
Their acropolis grew until a pandemic brought business to a standstill.
“Many of our retail buyers had their stores closed,” said Karpos. “Immediately, some orders were put on hold and eventually canceled because we didn’t know what was going on.”
And so a company built on traditions of the past turned to its own history to find a solution.
“If you’ve been to Google before and entered a search term, you might see the first three results with the little word ‘ad’,” Karpos said, referring to Google Ads.
Businesses can target certain keywords and pay to have their business appear at the top of search results with those words.
While the couple used these ads in the past, Karpos credited them for helping the company survive.
“What was increasing was the demand for custom work and the number of visitors to our website and requests for a specific project, custom work, public art,” she said.
The Karpos continued to refine their ads and keywords, which resulted in an important milestone.
“We were included in Google’s Economic Impact Report,” said Karpos.
Out of all the companies in the state, Google selected this company as an example of a company that would benefit from buying its search results ads.
“Feels good as an entrepreneur that we’ve succeeded in what we’re doing,” said Karpos.
The Wings of Victory have given their business blessings thanks to a small purchase in the mid-1990s and an ongoing interest in marketing their products online.
Now a small company built on tiny statues has managed to expand far beyond Greece and around the world.
“If you are a business owner everything will go wrong, but then you will reap the rewards,” Karpos said.
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