Views from the Bus: Episode 4, Beaver & Pam Theodosakis of prAna

There aren’t too many husband-wife successful entrepreneurs with successful marriages in this business, but Beaver and Pam Theodosakis, Founders of Prana, are really the best example of coming together and creating something that wasn’t there before.

PODCAST HIGHLIGHTS

6:20 – Starting Life’s a Beach: Beaver says, “We made these long shorts and started wearing them around and some motocrossers started liking them and guys on the beach, then spring break hits and millions of kids came to South Florida. So we had this captive audience pretty much and the brand took off.”

9:18 – Biggest lesson Beaver learned in his career: Beaver says, “This one is the most painful, hardest lesson with the most important one.Having honest and frank communications with your partnership and your partners, whether it be, your spouse, your girlfriend, your business partner, whatever it is, creating a forum where you can sit down and air your differences because you’re going to have differences. You’re different people.”

13:41 – Growing Prana without partners: Beaver says, “We grew without any partners cause we didn’t want to be put on a treadmill row at a certain rate, and we didn’t want to compromise the ideals of the brand.”

23:21 – Splitting up roles: Pam says, “Beaver is the marketing master guru in business. He definitely owns that side of the business and I was more the design. So I always put my 2 cents in on the marketing, but not on the financial side, he can do numbers like with his eyes closed and that’s not my specialty.”

26:20 – Having a barebones machine: Beaver says, “It was just running a super lean machine. Turning over money, really only investing in inventory and branding. My desk was a piece of plywood for five years, six years. There was no fancy anything at our place.”

31:30 – Human touch: Beaver says, “There’s something to be said for a live experience for a handshake. Whether we’re selling stuff at a climbing event, whatever, there’s something to be said for human touch.”

32:14 – Working with retailers: Pams says, “It puts you on the map and then it opens so many other doors.”

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