Like many consumers, John Mayberry was looking to upgrade his iPod. The IT technician had 50,000 songs stored on his computer, but his 60-gigabyte iPod maxed out at 12,000 songs. And Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) wasn't helping. Last year the company discontinued its largest iPod, a 160GB model, citing concerns about its design. Currently the largest iPod that Mayberry can buy is 120GB - or half the size of his music library.
That was the cue for Rapid Repair, located in Kalamazoo. In February the startup began retrofitting old iPods with a new 240GB hard drive. The price of the procedure, $300, was the same as the cost of a new iPod, and having the device hacked broke its warranty. But Mayberry didn't care: He finally had an MP3 player equal to his music library. "I'll hold on to this one for a while," he says.
He wasn't alone. In the first two hours the service was available, Rapid Repair received 300 orders - more than its inventory could handle. One month later the company had solved its supply problem and upgraded 500 iPods.
