CHRISTINA (Operator): Sundance Catalog. This is Christina. How can I help you?

BRENT BECK: This is a product out of Jonah Bridge collection by John Reed, a famous Adirondack designer, and this is all hand-bent hickory, handmade.

HATTIE: (Voiceover) Brent Beck has been with the Sundance operation since 1970.

BRENT: It's preserving the history of the last century and really fits into what we're about. You know, going onto the product, it's outdoors, obviously. There's a brand-new kind of napkin holder that's got a wind tray on it. This is a weighted little tree that sits on top of the napkins, so if you're out picnicking or on your patio they don't blow away. A tray out of the same metal stuff.

HATTIE: (Voiceover) Robert Redford brought Harry Rosenthal, CEO of the catalog, into the organization because of his success in his own catalog business.

HARRY ROSENTHAL: If we're tight on space on this one, I would recommend killing the tray, even though I know it matches the napkin holder, just 'cause it's a really weak category. I mean, we've carried a lot of trays, and I think most of them are still out back somewhere. I don't know, but you've got to leave room for the story on this guy.

I grew up in the suburbs of New York, actually, a classic New York post-war suburb which is New Rochelle. If you've ever seen the old "Dick Van Dyke Show," it takes place in New Rochelle, New York, a very much classic suburbia. I went to college. I majored in Greek and Latin literature, perfect background for mail order. It's so perfect that I went to law school. There's not a lot else you can do with a Greek and Latin major. And I was a lawyer for several years in Los Angeles--securities law, tax law, real estate law--and always wanted to start a company and have a business, and I had some friends who felt the same way. So back about 10, 11, 12 years ago, we all quit our jobs, knocked on doors, raised money, and we started a mail-order catalog called Right Start catalog.

We really did think that we had the range of skills necessary that we could start up and succeed at a business that we knew nothing about. No, in fact, we did start up and succeed at a business we knew nothing about. However, I don't think that the range of skills was nearly as applicable as we thought it would be. I think it was more of the things that make any entrepreneur succeed, which is to say the ability to work very hard and to also react very quickly and be able to fly by the seat of your pants.

The first thing you learn, I think, when you start a new business in an area where you're inexperienced is that you really don't know anything. And the sooner you learn that, the faster you begin succeeding. It's when you think you know things that you don't know that you run into trouble.