AJ Prindle & Co was conceived and developed through the perseverance and passions of a team from Ford Unlimited. Understanding the history of AJP first requires an understanding of Ford Unlimited. Ford Unlimited is a group within Ford that was established in 1998 to develop AutoConcierge – a new enterprise that offers consumers a personalized automotive concierge service for all aspects of their automotive experience – from purchasing to maintenance, cleaning, repair and selling their vehicle. Over time, Ford Unlimited’s mission grew to “Turn unique consumer insights into businesses that transform the automotive experience.”

In the summer of 1999, the AutoConierge team was marketing its services at an art fair in Chicago. To draw more traffic, they decided to sell picnic packages of folding chairs and blankets. They sold out right away, leading to the first realization of the strong relationship between vehicle and lifestyle products.

In the fall of 1999, the Ford Unlimited team was asked to analyze the answers to a “Design your dream vehicle” question posed on iVillage.com, a women’s site. The four-hundred open text responses revealed that there was a whole lot of living going on in vehicles – kids, pets, meals, road trips, commuting, mobile offices … but not a lot of readily available solutions. The Ford Unlimited team realized that many products existed that could address these needs, but that the products were spread across multiple market segments or marketed primarily to “gear heads.” No one was pulling all of these products together into solutions built around consumers’ mobile lives. Subsequent research showed that over 36% of U.S. drivers – 65 million people – said that their vehicle was not outfitted to fit their lives, which represents an untapped market of $10 billion. The team decided to develop a new company, code named AutoTailor, to address this untapped market by offering Automotive Lifestyle Solutions.

First, the team developed the AutoTailor “idea story” – the story of the business told through the experiences of two consumers, along with the overall business structure and market potential. The team presented this idea story to Ford senior management in December 1999. Ford senior management loved the idea and gave the go ahead to develop a full business case. The business case was presented and approved in April of 2000.

From May through August 2000, the strategy was honed and the more permanent team was put in place. By September, the company was moving forward rapidly. The business, which was originally envisioned as an Internet venture, had expanded into a direct mail catalog and web store. In September the team began working with Time Inc. Custom Publishing on the development of our first catalog. In October, the company launched a test site, called theInnerChange, to prove the concept. The site showed that consumers would respond to a business built around automotive lifestyles.

Over the next six months, the team work feverously to develop a totally new retail business from the ground up. Almost everything had to be developed from scratch – the product line, branding, catalog, web site, PR, IT infrastructure, business processes, staffing, HR, business alliances, financial systems, fulfillment capabilities, call center, etc.

During that time we also changed our name. A number of names failed to pass legal requirements, including AutoTailor, AutoOutfitter and Life in Gear. We looked at many alternatives, but eventually were enamored by a logo based on the “PRND21” gear shifter. This symbol represents our commitment to meeting our customer’s needs as they shift from work to play to rest and back again. However, we could not come up with a name that worked with the logo, until we realized that the industry nickname for our logo, a “prindle,” was also a last name. And so, AJ Prindle was born.

In late March 2001, the AJ Prindle & Co., LLC opened for business with a 52-page direct mail catalog and web store. In April 2001, our first month of business, we received 1002 orders and $63,338 in revenue. The rest is history.