Reflecting on 2014
Dear everyone,
I became a business owner the way that protagonist girl falls in love in The Fault In His Stars: “I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, then all at once.” I never thought I’d start my own business, and didn’t set out to do so. I was just making cards that I found I needed – scratching my own itch, so to speak. In my mind, the title of Entrepreneur was up there with Ultra-Marathoner – I admired others who wore those badges, but they weren’t ones I aspired to or thought played particularly well to my strengths.
Nevertheless, this past year, for a number of reasons and kind of no real reason at all, I started taking my business, and by extension it turns out, myself, more seriously. I learned that you don’t have to be wildly extroverted and charismatic, well-connected, or a “visionary” to be an entrepreneur. Hell, you don’t even need to have a plan or a finished product.
I started and grew Kwohtations pretty much the same way I do most everything else in life – cautiously with occasional bouts of confidence, varying degrees of thoughtfulness and over-analysis, lots of whining and wallowing, a certain amount of scrappiness, and the unshakeable belief and support of people who love me.
As a staff of one, I spend inordinate amounts of time by myself designing, carving, printing, painting, stamping, packaging, sorting, tracking, shipping, and promoting cards. But I’m never going about it alone; I have a team of people unflaggingly cheering me on and giving me their time, energy, and heart and mind space. They cart my mountain-loads of crap to and from flea markets, keep me alive with food and coffee, and occasionally man the stall so I can pee.
They form impromptu and captive focus groups for potential card ideas. They help craft and edit my Facebook and Instagram posts, and then promptly *Like* all of them. They are reluctant models for my photo shoots. They patiently listen to me gripe and grumble, then assure me (again) that Kwohtations is not a dumb idea and gently remind me (again) that this is supposed to be fun.
They help me hunt around in our neighbors’ trash for useful pieces of wood, patiently explain the difference between a domain name and a hosting site, and never complain when I’ve covered every usable flat surface in the house with drying cards. Basically, they are there to hold my hand through all of it, for which I am eternally blessed and grateful.
When I first started out, I brushed it off uncomfortably whenever anyone referred to Kwohtations as my “card company.” “It’s not a real business, just something I do for fun,” was often my knee-jerk response. I think I reacted in this way because I felt vulnerable; for me, Kwohtations is deeply personal.
In my professional life, I take great pride and ownership in my work, but am always slightly removed from it – there’s really no place in a data analysis to unpack how I feel about the fact that everyone on my Facebook feed is seemingly on Forbes’ “30 under 30” list, and I can’t write “getting out of bed” under the “Accomplishments” section of a grant report, even though some days it really is.
In contrast, Kwohtations reflects my voice, my humor, and my reality. It’s what I find funny and how I experience life. Putting Kwohtations, and thereby myself, tangibly out there for others to see and evaluate is scary, unchartered territory. It’s me, not my analytic skills or project management abilities, that I’m exposing for evaluation and potential failure. So, as a coping mechanism, as with so many things that have the potential to affect me deeply, I pretend like it doesn’t matter at all. But really, it does.
I don’t have aspirations to change the world. I just want to minimize the harm I cause and make my little patch of grass as green as possible for those who share it with me. I hope that Kwohtations is one way of doing this, of spreading joy and bringing people closer together by using humor to celebrate the diversity and cope with the absurdity of life.
Kwohtations and me – we’re both constant works in progress. I’m anticipating some incremental improvements and big life breakthroughs in the upcoming year, as well as a good amount of stagnation and making the same mistakes over and over again. And I think I’m ok with that.
Love,
Janine