Today we’d like to introduce you to Mark Sarian.
Hi Mark, so excited to have you on the platform. So, before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
We’re Mark Sarian and Eli Newell. Longtime friends who met in NYC at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre doing comedy and ended up in LA failing at comedy. The one thing we definitely do well is love dogs. Big dogs. Little dogs. Shaggy dogs. Bald dogs. Really, any dog. Just as long as they’re a dog. So much so that Eli actually runs an annual Weiner Dog race in Portland, OR, every July 4th, called the Firecracker Wiener Dog Nationals. We also love dog parks. Both having the entrepreneurial spirit and drive to find something to focus our energies on during the pandemic, we conceived of the idea: Make a cool dog park hat celebrating dogs and their dog parks and give a proceed from every sale to Best Friends Animal Society.
We did a ton of research on the most popular dog parks, high-quality trucker hats, and charities that help foster dogs. We launched our site in October of 2021, and what we found was people really responded to what we were doing.
Since our online launch, we’ve expanded to other cities, included t-shirts patch hats, and even got our t-shirts and hats into several retail locations (The Urban Pet, Postalworks Silverlake). We’ve had a few celebrities buy our hats (which always helps) and hope in the future we can keep getting the word out and expanding to new cities to share our love of dogs.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
As any entrepreneur knows, it’s never an easy road. You make mistakes, but hopefully, you quickly learn from them as well and pivot to a better strategy. Luckily, we found a great local supplier, which has helped tremendously. Marketing has been our biggest hurdle. With TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, etc., there’s always a learning curve to see what works and what doesn’t. Unfortunately, in the meantime, you’re spending money. Lots of money. We’re still all in-house and a very small two-man operation, so until the volume reaches a place where we can begin to hire someone else, it’s all hands on deck every day.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Both Eli and I come from a comedy background in improv from NYC. We both met performing at the Upright Citizens Brigade theatre there and subsequently here in Los Angeles. So, managing failure is something we’re both steeped in. But resilience is also a calling card of ours. So, whatever pitfalls we endure in our professional lives in the entertainment world, we always bounce back with renewed vigor to take on the next challenge and keep going. If you want to see what we’ve been up to in TV and film, you can always check out our IMDb pages if you’re really that interested in two middling actors.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
What matters most to us is delivering a quality product that is unique and bold and hopefully makes the customer feel like they stand out. And of course, helping the larger community of dogs and dog owners help feel like they’re part of something bigger. Which is why we give to Best Friends Animal Society. Knowing that with each sale, a foster dog somewhere is getting the help it needs to find a loving home is all the motivation we need to keep going.
Pricing:
- • All Hats $24
- • T-Shirts $20
Contact Info:
- Website: www.dogparkltd.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dogparkltd/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DogParkLtd
