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RESUME
Name: Benjamin Pham.
Title: Partner, creative director.
Company: Character, in San Francisco; a design firm specializing in collateral, packaging, retail space and broadcast design.
2001 revenue: $1.5 million.
Number of employees: 7.
Year founded: 1999.
Source of startup capital: Started business with $11,000 from each partner, for a total of $33,000.
Background: Studied graphic design at California College of Arts and Crafts in San Francisco, where he met Patricia Evangelista and Rishi Shourie, who became partners in the business. Later worked for annual report design company, Kahan and Associates, as a senior designer.
Age: 29.
Residence: Berkeley.
Web site: www.charactersf.com.
BIG PICTURE
Reason for starting business: We decided in college that we wanted to start a design firm. We set the time frame that we would all come back together to start a company in three years. We each went into different areas of design; Rishi went into advertising, Patricia went into publishing and retail design and I went into corporate branding. We wanted to be able to offer capabilities that normally an agency of 100-plus people could offer, but we wanted to offer the...