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From The Seedy Underworld of Drugs and Prostitution To Entrepreneurial Success: David Sharpe’s Journey with Empower Network (Part 3)

Posted on Sunday, Jan 26th

Sramana Mitra: I’m going to get into a granular line of questioning so that we can extract the real story here. When you decided that you wanted to start a company, what did you do first? I imagine you incorporated, but was there any savings? How did you put this business together? David Sharpe: We

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How An Entrepreneur Couple Bootstrapped to $5M: RuffleButts CEO Amber Schaub and COO Mark Schaub (Part 7)

Posted on Sunday, Jan 26th

Sramana: Are you still working with the same factory in the Dominican Republic? Amber Schaub: No. After all the mistakes that we had to deal with in the first order, we had to make a change. We worked with them for a short period of time. Over the years, we have developed relationships with manufacturers.

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From The Seedy Underworld of Drugs and Prostitution To Entrepreneurial Success: David Sharpe’s Journey with Empower Network (Part 2)

Posted on Saturday, Jan 25th

Sramana Mitra: How old are you now? David Sharpe: I just turned 30 last November 17. Sramana Mitra: How does this bridge us to your entrepreneurship? Where does your entrepreneurship begin – more of the kind of entrepreneurship that we cover?  David Sharpe: Certainly, you guys didn’t contact me because of my entrepreneurship in the

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How An Entrepreneur Couple Bootstrapped to $5M: RuffleButts CEO Amber Schaub and COO Mark Schaub (Part 6)

Posted on Saturday, Jan 25th

Sramana: How have you expanded your team from 2010 onward? What has your recruitment philosophy been? What positions have you hired for and how have those people helped you scale the business? Amber Schaub: Throughout the process, we have hired on a need basis. We are a family business and we did as much as

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From The Seedy Underworld of Drugs and Prostitution To Entrepreneurial Success: David Sharpe’s Journey with Empower Network (Part 1)

Posted on Friday, Jan 24th

From drugs, sex, prostitution, David Sharpe has seen it all. Hopelessly lost since his teens, a father at 15, jailed in his twenties, David has found his way back to a healthy life through entrepreneurship. Enjoy reading one of the most unusual stories we’ve done in the eighth year of Entrepreneur Journeys. Sramana Mitra: Dave,

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How An Entrepreneur Couple Bootstrapped to $5M: RuffleButts CEO Amber Schaub and COO Mark Schaub (Part 5)

Posted on Friday, Jan 24th

Sramana: Did you gain traction with the brick and mortar retail stores? Amber Schaub: We did get some good success early on. Nordstrom contacted us in late 2008. Sramana: How big was your first Nordstrom order? Amber Schaub: They did a 5 store trial order, which at the time, seemed huge to us since no

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How An Entrepreneur Couple Bootstrapped to $5M: RuffleButts CEO Amber Schaub and COO Mark Schaub (Part 4)

Posted on Thursday, Jan 23rd

Sramana: How did you handle such a big event so early on? I imagine it was quite an ordeal to get ready for celebrity exposure. Amber Schaub: I only needed 300 pieces to be able to do the event, so I had the factory send the completed work out to the hotel in LA. I

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How An Entrepreneur Couple Bootstrapped to $5M: RuffleButts CEO Amber Schaub and COO Mark Schaub (Part 3)

Posted on Wednesday, Jan 22nd

Sramana: You said you designed the clothing yourself even though you did not have a background in design. Can you explain that process to us? Amber Schaub: I would draw things up and take my designs to a pattern maker. She would take my designs and convert them into a paper pattern. I sent those

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