One of the primary things that originally attracted Don and Hapy to the Apple Macintosh platform when Small Dog Electronics came into being in 1995 was the usefulness and empowerment one attains when making the leap into the digital age with a device bearing the Apple logo. At the time, the Apple world was still very much a cult following of users, with a rainbow-colored logo and a rather small percentage of overall install base. Regardless, it was clear to them that Apple’s intuitive operating system would bear fruit as people became more accepting of something other than a PC running MS-DOS emulating Windows NT. I used to cherish the tee-shirt obtained at the San Francisco MacWorld Expo: “Dude, you’re gettin’ a Dell!”, while visiting the West Coast for the then famous Apple event. Some people were buying their very first personal computers from Small Dog!
I was asked to join the company a year later as Don’s skill at spending money on inventory and interest in trying new platforms (remember Mac clones?!) outpaced his ability to sell and process the orders. With Don’s infectious enthusiasm, and Hapy as the financial brains and technical mindset behind most of it all, I jumped in with both feet wondering how long it could last. My motivations, akin to theirs, were also in helping people get into this Mac computer cult, and prove that anything is possible with the right tools. Having known Hapy since elementary school as teammates in Little League and as a friend of his two sisters in high school, I was exposed to Apple gear at Don’s house for quite some time before Small Dog started. Something as simple as using Apple’s early MacPaint software programs really turned me on to how powerful a personal computer could be, even if the Mac SE only had a nine-inch black and white screen!
Some of my first tasks at the company were not only to process and ship orders, but also to monitor the classified section of America Online pertaining to computer memory (one of our first sales outlets online!) as well as mass-install two-piece internal modems into all the many PowerBook 520c refurbs Don secured (I was able to get it down to 20 minutes!). I soon became Apple Service Certified, and found myself elbows deep inside the computers and printers, too.
At the time Small Dog started in the mid-nineties, Apple’s PowerBook Duo 2300c and Performa series of computers were becoming the hot commodities. IBM’s PowerPC CPU chip architecture was branded all over the packaging as Apple strove to become more mainstream. Apple’s factory reconditioned product was made available at public auctions which Don regularly attended, and in the end, we were buying these direct. More marketing became necessary as the inventory required faster turnaround, and smalldoggy.com was born. Don suddenly had an even better platform to share our product listings and sound off on all things technical or otherwise.
It was in November of 1996 that Don sent out a request to our rapidly growing email list for help in naming this newsletter (from SmallDogE@aol.com!!). Soon after came the news of “We have a name…..Kibbles & Bytes”. Here’s a special shoutout today to Richard Taylor, then at Marquette University, for helping us name this “puppy”. Before long, I was also contributing to the newsletters, forcing me to open my knowledge base further as I wrote articles for TechTails, our more tech-centric newsletter, which followed a bit later on. Before long, the company was growing quickly in scope, not only as an early and very successful e-commerce website, but also expanding into bricks and mortar retail store locations, meeting with our customers face-to-face everyday. The spigot of sales we had built online was on and has not waned since.
I feel very much the same as I did then: Small Dog Electronics stands by your side in providing the hardware and software support needed to put these great digital devices to use. It’s more than just selling Apple’s digital lifestyle, but also in making sure you are comfortable with your purchase after the sale. Everyone at Small Dog is dedicated to learning what computers, phones, and tablets can and can’t do, so that you don’t make a poor decision when making your purchase. We remain proud to be in the very elite Apple Specialist Reseller Channel, and hope that you can all visit one of our great stores in person soon to see what new tools exist now to make your life better. We’re here to help!
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