There were times when I thought, you know, why am I doing this?

It's so hard.

First five years.

I didn't pay myself.

At one point I actually put my website for sale for like $25,000.

I looked back and I was so glad that no one bought it because I have a business worth millions of dollars now.

So the name of the company is StarfireDirect.com.

I started it back in 2007.

It was working another job full-time, was a operations manager for a company that I worked there for about seven years.

We sold similar products.

We sold lifestyle products, spa, pool tables, barbecues, umbrellas.

Everything for the indoor and outdoor lifestyle.

We had a big 30,000 square foot showroom.

But what ended up happening is, Nick, would the economy the way it was back in 2007?

Well, before that, you know, everything was going really well. We were selling tons of stuff.

Making lots of money.

But then the economy going down and closing stores, we were laying people off.

We were having to do these clearance sales just to make ends meet.

I saw the writing on the wall and I knew that the opposite was true with online.

I knew that year-over-year online retail sales were increasing.

And it was still kind of an interesting time because people were still uncomfortable purchasing online.

And it was almost nearly as big as it is now. It's still huge, but not what it is today.

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