From the outside, Don Chernoff looks like he has the life.
The 57-year-old former Intel engineer lives comfortably in Reston, Va., where he runs his one-man luggage company, answers only to himself and pockets a low six-figure income.
It doesn’t look so glamorous from where he sits.
Chernoff and his 16-year-old luggage firm, called SkyRoll, have weathered two recessions, a retail downturn, occasional problems in his supply chain and an 18 percent import-duty tax (it came to $100,000 last year) that the curmudgeonly businessman really, really dislikes.
“It is analogous to having a bloodsucking parasite attached to your body, except it’s the federal government and they attach themselves to my wallet,” he said.
The story of how a materials engineer and inventor ended up selling luggage comes down to a simple motivation: “I wanted to work for myself.”
His road to self-sufficiency includes educating himself on patent law, joining an inventor group, endless cold-calling of retailers and — the fun part — creating new products.
Chernoff asked me to write about the unglamorous side of business ownership after reading my recent column about another entrepreneur who had to unload a big chunk of his stock portfolio at a big loss to keep his family fed during the lean start-up years.
“I really hope you can write in more detail about the other issues that make it hard to survive as an entrepreneur,” he said. Between recessions and taxes, “sometimes I feel like, no matter what I do, I’m at the mercy of forces beyond my control. No one writes about the unglamorous side.”
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