Before he founded CustomInk, an online apparel retailer that generates more than $70 million in annual sales, Marc Katz was a financial analyst on Wall Street. The profitable business employs more than 250 people from its McLean, Virginia headquarters.
One of Katz's first investors was his father, a 3-time entrepreneur, who didn't think his son had a great idea.
"I told him I thought it was a terrible idea," Steve Katz tells Forbes. "Selling T-shirts on the Web, I just didn’t see how you distinguish yourself, so it would be a race to the bottom in terms of price...It’s amazing what you can do with a mediocre idea extremely well executed."