The Dream Is Born

Books are amazing, books give knowledge and wisdom, books entertain, books shape thinking and books inspire among a whole lot else. The book Rich Dad, Poor Dad  (you must have heard of it if not read it and contrary to what some say, It’s not a 13 ways to get rich kinda book) caused a complete paradigm shift for me (yay! I managed to squeeze in a phrase in my first blog post that makes me sound learnedJ).It was at that point after reading the book that I decided and got almost convinced that I wanted to become an entrepreneur.That was in my second year of campus.

I went through campus studying a course that I loved but the dream of becoming an entrepreneur persisted and slowly business ideas begun to pop. However, one business idea stuck and that was of an online store. This idea itched like an ant biting in the wrong place. Ever heard the saying “The severity of an itch is inversely proportional to the ability to reach it.”If you think about this saying, it’s so true, ever had a Safari ant go up the wrong way….I digress, back to how this dream was born.

So, I leave campus and have practically nothing, no capital, no knowledge on how to run a business, only an idea and the zeal to see it through. What to do? I applied for a loan but the application got rejected. In retrospect, (another hard word, boy I’m on a rollJ) I’m kinda glad it got rejected, might have ended up in serious debt).My two cents worth, it’s not very advisable to start a business on a loan unless the money has been borrowed from friends and family who can allow you to pay it off slowly as you make the money back. That’s just my two cents worth and probably a whole other blog post. Time to come up with a game plan…..I decide to seek employment and use the money from my salary to set up the business. It worked and after months and months and months and months of saving, I was able to set up a website which we are revamping soon (it’s coming back bigger and better thanks to all your critical reviews).From my savings, I was also able to buy a sewing machine and hire space which we use as a workshop to process our custom made orders. And that’s how we (we refers to the team I work with and the support system around me) begun, our first clients are so etched in my mind.What!!!God bless them for trusting us with their orders.

It’s been an interesting journey where many tears have been shed (ye I said it, tears have been shed when the going got tough), laughter shared (it’s not all gloom) and lessons learnt (these are the most precious and once grasped they propel the business to the next level).

We are not there yet, we are still facing a myriad of challenges but we have the assurity that with God as our guide/Chairman of board we will succeed.

Did you notice the myriad? (Told you I’m on a roll but I did not want to insert this bracketed comment in an otherwise heartfelt statement).

Regards,

Fashion entrepreneur :-)