Business Journal Report

Fresno’s Greene Concepts Inc. ‘Building an Inky Portfolio of Businesses’

August 26,2011: Anyone who owns an inkjet printer knows the high cost and inconvenience of running dry during an urgent project and having to run to the store for a reload.
Fresno – based Greene Concepts claims to have the solution to the hassle while saving people thousands of dollars a year on ink and toner.
Since forming about 5 years ago, the company has grown from the garage to now producing around 4,000 ink refill systems that claim a cost savings of 90 percent compared to buying new cartridges.
It’s manufacturing arm, Accubrite, turns out ink for dozens of printer brands from factories in Los Angeles, New Jersey and China, while more than a thousand private distributors fan out across the country introducing people to the flagship Freeink4life Refill Kit family of products and other accessories.
Founder Lenny Greene, a.k.a. ‘The Inkman’, hopes that kind of social marketing will be the key to success for his newest planned division, InkWay USA, which will soon launch to the public as a consumer – direct method of promoting his 30 refill kits while creating a little extra wealth for a network of ordinary folks wanting their piece of the more than $30 billion ink industry.
“Some people are making $500 a month, some are making $1,000 and there’s a guy making $3,500 a month using our kit”, Greene said.
The company’s 40 or so employees are also expecting a boom from a brand new advertising campaign launching soon to salespeople and consumers throughout the world via radio, television, newspapers and even magazines.
Already, a selection of 30 kits, refill stations and individual bottles of ink can be found in catalogs like Heartland America, Fingerhut and Skymall, not to mention on Accubrite’s Freeink4life website at www.freeink4life.com.
It’s a movement the company hopes answers what they see as the printer manufacturer’s stranglehold on the ink market, often charging for additional ink nearly as much as the machine cost itself.
“They just lie to everyone,” said Betsy Greene, director of communications and Greene’s wife of 30 years. “When someone buys a printer, a lot of times it says you can not operate with someone else’s ink – you have to use HP, who has most of the market. Or if you buy Canon, you have to use  Canon’s ink”.
Lenny Greene has been challenging the status quo for more than 30 years. Starting out serving large companies with typewriter maintenance under his father’s business, A.J. Greene Business Machines, Greene began introducing PCs to some of those same companies when he launched his next venture, Comservco USA, in the early ’80s.
Ink kind of came with the territory after that and Greene began developing his now-patented refill technology around ten years ago waiting to turn it into something profitable.
His opportunity came when he was invited to run a financial company in Fresno in 2005. Moving his family from his native New York, Greene oversaw the company for nearly a year until a falling out freed him up to buy another Fresno-Based firm which he renamed Accubrite with the goal of taking an ink market plagued with exorbitant prices.
“We’re the alternative”, Greene said. “The main thing about this company is we’re helping people. We believe we’re helping you reduce your carbon footprint by not having to throw your cartridges into landfills”.
Since going public last year, Greene Concepts, Inc. – trading over-the-counter under the symbol LKEN – has around 300 shareholders and sells ink compatible with more than 500 different types of cartridges on the market today.
“Everything I do, I test, I observe the results. If it’s working well, we expand. If it’s not working well, we adjust, test observe, adjust”, Greene said.
Green Concepts newest division, Greene Nanosolar, is in the works to produce a foil painted with the company’s special nanoparticle ink that works as a conduit for solar power generation. According to Greene, the technology can give as much energy as any photovoltaic solar panel that you might find on someone’s roof.

Ben Keller I Reporter can be reached at:
559-490-3465 or email ben@thebusinessjournal.com