Apparently I’m a bootstrapper. An entrepreneur who is willing to invest all her life savings and time into a start up venture without any help from an external source of dosh. And on a shoestring budget. Well then, I guess I am.
Mr relish covered the majority of our living costs for the first 12 months of building relish this, so my savings and time could be spent on building the business. This was a great advantage, yet it was still tough. The business was created on a budget thinner than a french fry.
Pumping everything you’ve got into one big fat basket (or should I say pot) is friggin risky, a rollarcoaster ride and is really scary. On a few particularily low days, days when I’d just had enough and was keen to throw relish this out the window and down the street, I remember thinking how easy it would be to walk back into the corporate world and continue where I left off. Walking away – and staying away – from what everyone else was doing, and everything I’d been ‘trained’ to aspire to, was h.a.r.d. It required a lot of deep digging and stubborn discipline to ride it out. Bootstraps n all. It still does.
I suppose if I were to look at this logically, staying at your “job” and starting your *something* on the side to help fund it , before kicking into those savings and having no choice but to budget with french fries, might be a better idea. But if you’re miserable and have enough self-belief to create your own magic, then go for it. If your own savings aren’t there for you to dig into to fund you, your passion and your bit of magic, what the heck is it really for then?
I’m not writing this to put anyone off taking the leap, cause – for the record – I would totally do it all again and recommend anyone else to go for it. I’m also not writing this to say how great I am or how to do it. I am writing this to give you the heads up that it is NOT e.a.s.y. (if you can grasp that now, it will help you later). No magic prince of business is going to come knocking on your door with his fancy white list of what you need to do and how to go about it (although there is a LOT of great information out there). But remember, that’s all part of the magic – your magic – no one else can tell you how you’re going to do it. Don’t give up, it’s all about you baby and when you’re having one of those days (and yes you will) just acknowledge it, grit your teeth, be a bootstrappin young lass (or lad) and believe. It’ll take you places.
image credit: http://www.pirate-girl.cg-graphic.com/
