live. work. dream.

We haven’t lived the typical office life for nearly a year now, since selling our business.

And I must say, we don’t miss it one bit.

We got a pleasant reminder of running your own business, however, while in Los Angeles.

We had the chance to meet Arnie Costell, who owns Watson’s Pet Products – manufacturers of the Bottom’s Up Leash. More about that to come on Jerry’s site soon.

But having run a busy graphics shop with just the two of us, we could relate with how Arnie manages his entire business all by himself.

Arnie is quite a character, a great guy, and a smart business man. He pitched for the NY Yankees from 1978 to 1988 and is proud of his two world series rings. He’s worked in the garment industry and has been burned by partners less passionate about his products, which were developed for his beloved senior dog Watson.

He wears all of this experience like a badge of honor. And while it comes off like he might be able to sell ice to the eskimos, well … he probably could. But he wouldn’t have to sell hard. They would choose to buy from him because he believes in his product.

After all, he develops the products, takes the orders, packages the goods, ships them, and answers the phone. Ahhh, the joys of running your own business …

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 22nd, 2008 at 2:09 am and is filed under Making Money, Our Story, Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.