It doesn't take a lot. With margins so precious, frugality was a point of pride. For offices, the company found a red barn that had been used to manufacture keyboards for cash registers in fast food restaurants. The barn is next to a lawn and garden center and across the street from a ministorage building. Tel-Save has no formal reception area.
Visitors find themselves wandering down hallways to the receptionist.
One recent day, the only place to sit was a chair covered with papers outside a row of cubicles, where casually dressed employees in Birkenstocks toiled at computer screens. There is no press officer or investor relations representative. Mr. Borislow writes his own press releases, sometimes rambling on or openly discussing how much he'd like a potential suitor to pay for Tel-Save. The company grew in fits and starts, becoming just profitable enough that Mr. Borislow could consider expanding. He wanted to get into the consumer long-distance market.