Doba founder uses practical ingenuity

Growing up on a farm in southern Idaho, Jeremy Hanks often saw problems that he thought he could solve using a little practical ingenuity.

That trait has come in handy during Hanks' career as an entrepreneur, and particularly in founding his Orem-based company, Doba, which uses technology to help product suppliers and retailers bring a variety of products to market.

Hanks hopes Doba's Inventory on Demand platform will revolutionize the business-to-business aspect of product sales. Doba has a virtual inventory and fulfillment system that lets suppliers offer a greater variety of products to retailers, who access those products as they are needed by customers rather than having to maintain large inventories.

More than 300 suppliers from 25 product categories use Doba's platform, along with 20,000 startups and 200 small and midsize retailers. More than 2 million unique products can be accessed through Doba, and 225,000 orders representing $15 million in wholesale products have gone through the system since Doba was founded in late 2002.

That's the kind of synergy that Hanks seeks in his career as an entrepreneur, and he's keen to pass along his enthusiasm. He has a blog, Adventures in Entrepreneurship, and often speaks to groups about entrepreneurship. In those speeches, he cites his own "Seven Laws for Adventurous Entrepreneurs," which include such adages as, "Leap before you look" and "There are no roadblocks, only hurdles."