News

Who's who: Jonathan Arfin

SeePoint has built more than 5,000 systems in the past five years. And Arfin said he can see business doubling in 2004.

November 24, 2003

It didn't take too many trips up and down stairs with immensely heavy kiosks to make Jonathan Arfin realize that he could do things a better way.

Arfin was working as a graphics designer for a kiosk firm back in 1988. The company was located on the second floor, and when kiosks needed to be moved, all the employees would go downstairs to shoulder the load. "We were working with all this furniture. Yet I was able to bring my laptop home at night to work on the applications," said Arfin.

"I thought, `why am I building furniture?' I wanted to attack kiosks like Sony builds TVs."

He raised capital and went to out form his own company, SeePoint Technology LLC, with his wife, Sydney. Arfin is president. Sydney is vice president. He said his strength is in design. All of the company's patents come from his desk.

The company designs kiosks for several Fortune 500 companies like Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Real Networks, and Deloitte and Touche. The 11-person company has built more than 5,000 systems in the past five years. Each year, according to Arfin, SeePoint has been profitable. Arfin said he can see business doubling in 2004.

"Our enclosures are injection-molded plastic that roll off an assembly line," he said. "LCD technology gave us the advantage to get creative." Arfin's goal is to make kiosks "as small as humanly possible," to offer customers flexibility.

Jonathan Arfin, president of SeePoint

By design

Arfin views his company as working with Legos. SeePoint has 10 distinct models, two different LCD sizes and 25 peripherals from which customers can choose. Arfin has patented a service connection, or tiny elbows as he calls them, that allow components to mix and match, and be swapped out easily without a technician. He calls his concept "customized off the shelf."

"If a customer is having trouble with the computer on the kiosk, we can drop ship a replacement computer," said Arfin.

The company recently hired a vice president of operations to run the manufacturing, so Arfin is freed up lately to concentrate on designing. "It's fun. I get to play with gadgets all the time."

Neutrogena is SeePoint's No. 1 customer. "We offer them two things," said Arfin. "We have built traveling systems with a small footprint." The customer built its own software in-house. The application lets the kiosk "look" at consumers and make suggestions about their skin care. SeePoint built a translucent, amber-colored enclosure that looks like a bar of Neutrogena soap.

"Our designs can solve multiple problems for customers through serviceability, small footprint, and our willingness to go the extra mile. We work very hard to keep our customers," Arfin said.

Self-serve prodigy

Arfin was 18 years old when he first started in the self-service industry. He worked for a racetrack, writing applications related to horseracing.

"I've always been a computer guy," he said. At age 9 he was building computer programs in BASIC. He had a paper route to fund his technology hobby.

"I worked on a Commodore VIC 20, which is less powerful than the digital watch I'm wearing today," he laughed. The VIC 20 was the first affordable home microcomputer.

He attended University of Southern California, where he majored in entrepreneurship. Part of his coursework was writing business plans.

After graduation, Arfin went to work for Touchvision. He stayed there almost three years.

Today, the work environment Arfin has created at SeePoint is very important to him. Every Friday, year round, the office closes at 2 p.m. And he finds that sales meetings can break out on the basketball court. "Basketball is my No. 1 activity. And the whole sales department plays."

Arfin has a simple formula for success. He said his company will continue to grow as long as customers are 100-percent satisfied and his employees are happy.

"The long term will take care of itself." He has no plans to take SeePoint public, keeping the company very closely held. He said his investors are making returns.

Market strengths, challenges

Arfin has seen "a huge groundswell of growth" in self-service since the success of airline check-in kiosks. He said he is amazed at the high profile kiosks enjoy today. He likes the fact that anyone, from a business executive to a contractor, can do his or her own checkout. "Everyone is looking at the options."

He said companies must take self-service seriously. "It's irresponsible if businesses do not make it a point to understand how self-service can help customers," he said, adding that self-service also makes businesses more efficient. "Healthcare and labor costs are going through the roof," he explained.

Another strength of working with kiosks is that Arfin gets to climb into many other industries.

"In the morning I'm talking cosmetics. In the afternoon it's healthcare." SeePoint once sponsored a racecar because the company had built a kiosk that shared track data.

The challenge of the industry, he said, is that the marketplace is fragmented. "There will be a shakeout. There's not enough room for an many small companies as we have today. I'm not sure how many actually have the deep knowledge they need to survive."

For his part, Arfin is building support for the industry. He recently spoke to a marketing class at USC to explain how great kiosks are as a tool. "I'm trying to build understanding."