DEVON and Nayana Williams believe owning a business together is making their marriage stronger. The two are equal shareholders of Lifespan Company Limited, a bottled alkaline spring water manufacturing company located at Spring Garden in Buff Bay, Portland.

They believe that having to work together to manage and build their own enterprise has enhanced their relationship.

“We enjoy what we do as we create our own destiny. We live in a world filled with challenges that can be overcome if we have the mindset to conquer all the obstacles. We have started our vision by implementing it and have come a long way and still have quite a way to go,” Nayana told Career & Education.

She said being an entrepreneur is all about commitment, persistence, passion and long hours.

“The bottom line is not only our goal for the business, but our journey together,” she added.

The two said from the start of the business cycle — the stage of idea generation and drafting a business plan — they had a sense of ‘oneness’ as they had to put their thoughts together for the foundation of the plan.

Prior to registering Lifespan in 2005, they had both migrated to the United States in search of better opportunities, but chose to return to their homeland after getting experience in the States.

Nayana, 38, had a career in the entertainment industry in Hollywood in the areas of marketing, music production and finance. Devon, 48, is a marine navigator and an aviation pilot.

They said becoming entrepreneurs in Jamaica has given them a different sense of purpose and different challenges to overcome.

“We did extensive research and were satisfied with our findings. We had two plans on how to get started at the time. Plan A was to obtain the identified land and build our factory at the site of the source. Plan B was to construct our factory on land already available to us and truck the water from the source to the factory, until we acquired the identified land. We ended up working with Plan B, which was quite a challenge,” Devon said.

They built a 1,200-square ft facility using a 40-ft container, ply and zinc with white ceramic tiles, and operate from there.

“We purchased semi-automated equipment from the US and there was delay in getting our equipment, so we started trading in 2006, which was also later than what we planned for,” Devon said.

Selling their first products was no walk in the park either.

“There were three of us at that time — myself, Devon and his brother, David. We made the first 100 cases ourselves. We had a pick-up truck and David had a pick-up truck and we loaded them up and drove to east Port Antonio. We sold 10 cases on our first day,” Nayana said.

Since then, business has been booming and Lifespan Company was recently named one of Jamaica’s most innovative and sustainable businesses under the National Bakery’s Bold Ones Initiative.