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My hero for today

I've never bought anything made by Paul Frank Industries, but I might now that I know some of the story behind the business...which was founded upon (you'll never guess!) a guy just doing what he loves.

My favorite bits from my friend Lora Kolodny's interview with Paul Frank in the August issue of Inc. magazine, on how he built a $100 million design business...

One time, I wanted orange vinyl stripes on my sneakers. You couldn't find that in stores yet. I could only find it at this boating supply store. So I had a huge quantity on my hands. Instead of using it for little stripes on my shoes I started making wallets, sewing them up in my room at home. I gave a few to friends, and then everyone wanted one.

I realized I could start selling this stuff. Ryan said, Why don't you? His dad discouraged us -- that was okay. Ryan went and borrowed money from his stepmom, $5,000. That's all we started with.

Our success as a company has a lot to do with two things: being flexible, and being okay with where we are at the time. I lived at home until I was 31. And I have always felt successful. If I was selling a few wallets to people I knew, or selling just 300 T-shirts to a Japanese store, or selling to just one catalog, Delia's -- I always said: Whoa, all right! We did it!

Posted by Ian Ybarra on 4 October 2005