This seriously is the longest blogpost in history, so I’m breaking it into three sections:
Part 1. My Story
Part 2. My Story’s Still Being Written
Part 3. What’s Yours?
Part 1: My Story
Behind every business, successful or otherwise, there’s an entrepreneur with a story.
For whatever reason, this individual goes against the traditional expectations most people have to get an education, find a job, get promoted, be secure and happy.
Entrepreneurs can’t seem to follow that pattern. We have an innate need to be the boss, to start something, and to do something amazing that hasn’t been done before.
To celebrate today’s release of my book The Entrepreneur Story, I’ll tell you my story– and then tag 10 other entrepreneurs whose stories I’d love to hear.
Career Ambitions At Nine Years Old
When I was 9 years old, I wrote in my journal that “The best job would be an author, and the worst? A garbage woman.” Little did I know that being an entrepreneur would trump both, and sometimes, require skills from all of the above.
In college, I struggled to find one discipline that I resonated with. I changed my major constantly. Music. Spanish. Russian. Business. English. Dance. Then back to Music.
I loved doing everything, so it’s no surprise that I found myself as a senior with enough credits to graduate, no major, and no clue as to what my profession would become.
In a stroke of good karma, my university concocted a degree for people like me who couldn’t figure it out: “University Studies”. It was a schmorgasbord degree: pick any three areas, take enough credits to be respectable, and would you graduate already??? So I chose Music, Modern Dance and English, and I had a fantastic time.
Realizing I Graduated With A Useless Degree
When I got out of college, I realized my diploma wasn’t marketable. Now what?
My first year of post-college work experience reflected a certain lack of knowing what I wanted. First, social work. Then freelance editing. Then teaching English as a Second Language.
At one point, I got tired of working part-time jobs that weren’t going anywhere, so I got serious about a career and landed my first “real job” as a writer for a marketing company.
As it turned out, not all companies are equal. This organization had such structural and ethical problems, there were two complete staff turnovers in the short 6 months I worked there.
In the meantime, I realized three things:
1. If you solve big problems, you become immediately invaluable to a company.
2. I was fascinated with web-based applications, specifically in marketing and also creating websites.
3. If I didn’t find a rockstar organization to work at, I was going to suffocate.
Finding– And Losing– My Dream Job
I began researching companies to find a new job. I determined that somewhere in Utah, there had to be an amazing organization dealing with web stuff, startups, and great people. And there was.
I found Provo Labs, an internet incubator, when CEO Paul Allen was profiled in a local business magazine, Business Q.
I read the article and soaked up the details: everyone there had a BlackBerry. They were researching and developing not one startup company, but 12 simultaneously. It was an exciting, inspiring organization, and I determined I would work there.
On the recommendation of a friend, I wrote this blog for Provo Labs, and was hired two days later.
It was the best experience of my career to that point, although, a little embarrassing.(At that point, I was unfamiliar with the concept of a “blog”, and was mortified when I realized everyone associated with Provo Labs had read the blog before I even showed up that first day. Eeek.)
Well, it started off great. I was so excited about my new dream job.
So much so, that three weeks later, when the company closed its doors, I was still fairly enthused– as a group of us decided to continue the entrepreneurial adventure and start TagJungle, a search engine for the blogosphere.
Living “The Entrepreneurial Dream”
To be honest, I was so clueless. We all were, to some degree. For many of us, it was our first time truly living the entrepreneurial dream: working in a basement. Going without pay. Building a search engine.
It was only 18 months ago that we first broke away to start that business, but when you’re an entrepreneur, life seems to accelerate.
And in that time, I witnessed the shut down of the new company as well, started and endured the failure of The Hundred Dollar Business kiosk, started three other microbusiness projects (The Entrepreneur Story, Human Census, and The Cozy Home Spa), and have worked for a year starting the Eastern Idaho Entrepreneurial Center.
It has been a ridiculous, poverty-stricken, workaholic, exhilarating, depressing, wonderful adventure. To be an entrepreneur is to realize that life is a vacuum, and if you’re going to go anywhere at all, it’s because you’re the one who’s going to make things happen.
No one else holds your hand and calls up customers for you to make sales so that your company stays alive and you can eat food this week; you must do that for yourself.
I just love being an entrepreneur. It has nothing to do with having a major, having a “job”, or even going without pay sometimes.
It’s about taking an idea, and putting it into action, and fighting against yourself, your past business mistakes, and struggling in a global economy to carve out a niche where you can provide economic value to others.
Read More in Part 2: My Story’s Still Being Written
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