Made in the Shade
Acme Sunshades Enterprise Inc. brings protection, beauty and style to its customers
A well-known paint company’s motto is “Cover the earth.”
Acme Sunshades Enterprise Inc.’s motto is “Keeping you cool since 1922,” but it could also be “Block out the sun.”
This residential, commercial and industrial awning manufacturer and repair company is located in San Leandro, Calif., in the San Francisco Bay area.
Chih Ling Han is the sixth owner of the company. It was originally founded as a family business called the Acme Awning Co. Acme was a popular company name in the ‘20s. Why? First, its definition is “the highest point or stage … something or someone that represents perfection of the thing expressed.” Second, “Acme” appeared near the top of alphabetical listings in telephone books.
The business, which had a long-running reputation for providing outstanding products and services for residential customers, changed significantly when Han purchased it in December 2008. He changed the name to Acme Sunshades Enterprise Inc., in order to branch out from just awnings for homes.
“We provide everything,” Han says. “It’s a niche market but I didn’t want to be the niche of the niche. Anything that provides shade from the sun, we want to be able to supply it. We want to go deep and broad, a full-service approach.”
David Caswell is the firm’s Senior Designer and Sales Manager. He has been with the company for nine years, predating Han’s purchase of the company, and has 12 years of previous experience at another sunshades/awning business.
“We’ve developed, especially through The Blue Book Network®, a lot of contacts with general contractors. Their meet-and-greets have been especially valuable to meet with contractors who are putting up apartment buildings, office buildings or shopping centers. Instead of coming in and doing maybe one awning or shade structure, we’re doing the whole building when it’s being built. Everything we do is one-off, each project is start-from-scratch and unique,” says Caswell.
Branching Out and Moving Up
The unique projects produced by Acme are vast. Some of its typical products include:
- Mesh shade cover arrays
- Fixed metal awnings & canopies
- Residential exterior & interior sunscreens
- Fabric awnings with graphics for businesses
- Retractable awnings & canopies
- Tensioned shade sail structures
- Vertical-drop roller curtains with vinyl windows for outdoor seating at businesses such as restaurants
- Retractable Roman shades
- Carport & walkway covers
While Han is willing to take on any project, he has hard-earned experience with taking on jobs in the past that were borderline impossible. However, those projects were always completed—sometimes at a financial loss for Han—but he and his staff have learned valuable lessons from these experiences.
The work that Acme does goes far beyond stretching some cloth on a metal frame and attaching it to a building. Awnings and sunshades are not one-size-fits-all products.
The process for Acme in these cases typically involves a three-part variable. The architect either has a specific design that Acme follows to specifications; or there’s a drawing that Acme can duplicate but will need changes in order to meet industry standards; or there’s a conceptual rendering that requires Acme to do more original design work.
Acme also has an engineer on retainer and the company offers “wet-stamped” engineer drawings on request. (Wet-stamped refers to the engineer signing off in pen on the paperwork.) The engineer does the calculations to assure that the awning or sunshade is built to safety specifications and is structurally sound for its location and placement.
“The customer comes first,” Caswell says. “Customer service doesn’t generate a direct profit that shows up on an invoice, and it can frustrate customers when they get bad customer service. We get so many repeat customers … we have a reputation of servicing what we install and taking care of our customers. With Yelp and all sorts of customer reviews, your customer service can make or break you.”
Carlos Montero, owner of Tacos El Gordo in San Leandro, Calif., consulted with his architect to find an awning company he could trust. The architect recommended Acme, and today, Montero is well satisfied with the awning work that Acme did for his business just over a year ago.
“Acme worked with me to help design the awnings; the team came out and did a great job of installing,” Montero says. “They want to get the job done right. That was my concern when I was looking for someone on the project. I would recommend them to anybody.”
“A lot of it is repeat business,” Caswell says. “We have a handful of subcontractors, and we’ve done project after project after project with them. We are getting the reputation as the go-to guys for any kind of shade structures. We get a lot of referrals from one subcontractor to another.”
Caswell also credits the Acme website for producing a lot of its contacts with contractors; and the owner has made sure that the website has adapted to keep up with the ever-changing digital world.
“Customers are much more savvy, educated and sophisticated,” Han says. “When I bought the company, we were using the Yellow Pages and wasted a lot of money. Everybody is on social media now. We’ve spent time and capital to create our social media presence—blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, etc. We’ve re-done our website three times and are about to re-do it again.”
Han tracks customer engagement and says 99 percent comes from Acme’s digital footprint.
“It’s a time-consuming process but after three to four years it’s starting to pay off,” Han says.
Acme can publicize itself and bang its own drum but it also benefits from independent verification. The company is rated Diamond Certified, an advocacy arm of the American Ratings Corp. The American Ratings website explains that these specifications are so stringent that “most companies can’t qualify.” The organization has certified Acme for each of the last three years.
“Being Diamond Certified is crucial because it separates us from our competitors,” Han says. “It’s not a right, it’s a privilege; you have to earn it. You have to have a 90 percent rating in customer satisfaction. When someone comes to the website, they see ‘Diamond Certification’ and know they are dealing with a high-quality, reputable company.”
A Long and Winding Road to Entrepreneurship
The road to success has been paved with success, but not every part of the journey was easy. Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Han and his family moved to Santiago, Chile when he was a teenager. He came to the United States for his college education, attending the University of Kansas (and obtaining a B.S. degree in electrical and electronics engineering) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (where he obtained master’s degrees in electrical and electronics engineering and in computer science).
After completing his education, he moved to California and spent 10 years working as a software engineer. During those years, he used his spare time to study other business opportunities. The bursting of the “Dot-com bubble” and an eventual desire to strike out as an entrepreneur led him to purchasing Acme.
“I guess it was a gutsy decision,” Han says. “All my education was in high-tech and I bought a company that is basically low-tech. Being an entrepreneur, it’s often not logical. You have to go with your gut feeling or what your heart tells you.”
The timing wasn’t great when he bought the company. The economy was tanking. During the recession, competitors cut their prices in an attempt to increase their bottom lines. Han held his company’s line and made do by reducing the workforce and juggling work schedules.
“I wanted to maintain the brand name and the reputation of a company that has been around for nearly 100 years,” Han says. “Competition will be there, but I just want our company to be the best it can be. I think that will speak loudly in the long run.”
After making it through the recession and also retooling the company’s business plan, Han has seen Acme make consistent strides in terms of its growth and bottom line.
Acme covers the entire San Francisco Bay area. The health and success of the company has reached the point where Han is being aggressive in terms of the scope of projects Acme will tackle.
Acme has 15 full-time employees, but Han says don’t be fooled by the small number. He believes that he has been able to assemble a group of workers who are efficient and experienced. Those two factors enable Acme to handle a high volume of work, which should enable Han to grow the workforce over the next five to 10 years.
“After we got through the recession, we started to see a turnaround in 2014; and in 2015, things really started to take off,” he says. “Since then, each year has been higher, higher, higher. We’re doing things we haven’t done before—larger commercial projects—and we’ve added employees who have helped us keep up with the increased work.”