My name is Jason Rappoport. I am one of more than 30 million American men between the ages of 20 and 60 who are under 5 feet 8 inches tall. This is my story.

In February of 2000, I was working in a Nashville public relations firm, and was expected to wear a necktie on a daily basis. It’s not that I minded wearing the tie – I like to look good as much as the next guy – it was the tying that frustrated me. Each morning, I found that I was spending an extra fifteen minutes wrestling with a tie that was not in proportion to my height, and hung awkwardly below the middle of my belt buckle – the standard and proper location. All I really wanted was to make the length of my necktie look less ridiculous than usual.

While doing some research at the office one morning, I glanced down at my tie, and a thought popped into my head: “What if there was a company that made neckties exclusively for shorter men?” As I advanced in my career, the idea had to be put aside. But the thought returned every time I had to put on a tie, and continued to fight – pardon the pun – a lengthy battle.

In 2002, I was accepted at business school to earn my Masters Degree. For the Entrepreneurship section of the curriculum, our team was asked to come up with a new business concept. I figured my old idea of designing proportional ties for men like me was original, if nothing else. The team loved it, and together we built a solid business plan. When I made the final presentation of our plan, I knew instantly it was an idea whose time had come. Both the faculty and my classmates encouraged me to move forward, and to make my dream a reality.

When the section ended, one of the professors who taught the Entrepreneurship course became my chief advisor. Soon after signing up my best friend, Michael Lewis, to be our Vice-President, we incorporated in December 2003.

The rest, as they say, is history. After countless hours of market research, and of putting our business case together, we held endless conferences with bankers and potential investors who looked at us quizzically and said, “Huh?” and then “No!” (Ironically, most of the folks we met with were tall - but we won’t hold that against them. Let’s just say their grasp of our concept was limited.) Not to be deterred, I scraped enough of my own money together to start the collective ball rolling, and then made the trip to Lake Como, Italy, to do business with three highly recommended necktie manufacturers. With the encouragement and support of my family, friends, and a top–notch development team, J. Raffiani was born.

Welcome to J. Raffiani. My gift to you is an extra fifteen minutes every day.