Columbus entrepreneur pins down his niche with Conquest Maps

In a world where just about everything seems to have been done already, one young Columbus entrepreneur has discovered a novel niche in the world of business.

“To give you the short of it, my fiancée at the time wanted a nice big map to put on the wall, and we weren’t able to find what we wanted,” 29-year-old Ross Worden told 614NOW. “Nothing had the style we were looking for. So, basically, I made it.”

Worden is a full-time industrial designer by day, but he’s also the founder of Conquest Maps, a high-end travel map company designed to let you show off where in the world you’ve been–in style.

His maps are printed on canvas and stretched across an internal frame lined with real cork, allowing customers to take their pins from place to place without having to laboriously remove them from a wall and replace them later.

“I wanted really nice looking maps, and to have something that was pinnable and moveable,” Worden said. “So it’s a fusion of home decor and design, but it’s much more practical and travel-oriented.”

The sleek “modern slate” maps are his best sellers, but he also sells more traditional “rustic vintage” maps and “golden aged” maps for aspiring swashbucklers.

Worden started with an initial investment of $500–that was enough to make five extra maps, in addition to the original one he put in his home.  When those five maps sold, he took all the revenue and reinvested it in his business.

“It was a one-man operation for about two years,” Worden said. “My whole basement is still my production studio and my office.”

Two years later, he’s flipped those initial $500 into a web-based business where he’s shipping out dozens of maps a month.

Though Worden still does all the order processing, custom work and mailing, he has a part-time employee helping him out with the manufacturing.

By next year, he hopes to move his business to a dedicated facility and start running Conquest Maps full time.

Check out Worden’s maps at his website below!

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