Ingredients for a Catalog Startup

“When we got going,” Spitalny recalls, “we were growing at 100 percent a year.” The problem: “We didn’t have any profit or equity to show for it. So it was difficult to get the bank to pony up more money each time.”

Being persistent paid off. “For two young people with no experience at owning or starting a business, it took a lot of persistence to get the banks to give us the loans. And if one [banker] said ‘no,’ we went to another.”