Holding All The Keys

I wanted to title this “System of a Down." Also in here: the beauty products I use

I’ve spent the last month granularly tweaking a website template for Club Vintage (it looks great, btw), prodding the nuances of best practice user experience and how to make vintage shopping generally easier (reminder: the ROI for single-sku is terrible - hence why I model most of the clothes). I’m also trying to lay elemental foundations so Club Vintage can scale: implementing systems and processes that trigger other processes that keep everyone on track while we set up to open more stores. Parts of these administrative, essential tasks are interesting, even fun, but they take way away from the creative side of the job and I miss it.

The appeal of starting your own company, or going freelance (which is starting your own company) is the freedom. To work when and how you want, build the things that are interesting to you and have final say. If you stay small, I think labor fruit can be plenty, satisfying and the creative idea you turned into a job remains the focus point of your profession. For better or for worse I am driven to exponentially grow my thing. My plans are all in service of being wildly successful in helping resellers build their businesses and carving a significant space in the cultural psyche for turning to secondhand first for all of one’s needs. To no one’s surprise, this means I do a lot of work that is important for but not directly cultivating the fun parts of the job. I care about this work a LOT so I keep on keeping on but I’m supposed to be the shining, ideating, pedestaled creator shooting brilliant concepts out of my fingertips that other people execute. Turns out that isn’t how it actually works.

I’m not complaining, just observing. I spend a little time wondering if these *feelings* are communicated by mentors/business school professors to new entrepreneurs. I didn’t have either of those when I started so everything everyday is a surprise. I didn’t know (and probably most new founders don’t) how much learning is done on the job and how many systems are required to complete the simplest tasks. I did have a friend tell me recently that no one talks about how lonely being an entrepreneur is. That is true. The people I work with are smart, talented, funny and good but I work hard to keep their onuses small.