Starting a Baby Boutique & Clothing Line

Starting a business takes a lot of support

January 20th, 2007

“Support” has been a major theme in my life over the last few weeks. Well, really since starting a business, but extremely so in the last few weeks. And by “support” I mean both the incredible support I get from some people and the incredible lack of support I get from others.

Starting a business brings out the best and worst in people, especially you. I’ve worked myself to the bone and somehow find a way to work some more. But this escalates stress levels and everyone pays when everyone is too stressed. It also sheds a new light on friends and family and even acquaintances in your life.

My strongest supporter is my husband, my business and life partner. He does SO much to keep this business moving, from designing our graphic T’s to designing the website and handling product photography. I know that there is no way this business could run with just one person behind it (we’re not even getting into the numerous contractors who help us out). Even with just half of the business to run, I’m running around like a mad woman half the time. I resolve every day to get more organized, and while it happens in small pieces, I have far to go.

My husband supports me mentally, emotionally, and completely in the business. He is half of the design team, and it was his graphic onesies which were the biggest hit at the celebrity gifting suite.

Beyond my husband, the story is a little different. I’ve found some surprises in people who I thought were mere acquaintances - more than a few have turned out to be my strongest supporters. I’ve found surprises in those I thought were nearest and dearest to me, more than a few have given not only no support, but negativity and disbelief instead. To which I chant in my head an Ani DiFranco line “A thousand eyes will smolder with jealousy, while you were just flying past.”

I think that the celebrity gifting suite escalated emotions for people. Oh you would not believe the offers I received to GO to the suite and meet the celebrities. How few offers we received for hands on help (this is not to negate those who came to our rescue, no way we could have pulled it off without you). And I honestly could tell that some friends were jealous. Here we were, too caught up in getting prepared to even get too excited about meeting celebrities, and others are just chomping at the bit for a chance to see these people.

But man - those people who are jealous have nothing to be jealous of; they have no idea how many years of midnight shifts we’ve done to earn that prize. How much of our “free time” we’ve devoted to working on this business in order to craft products that are worthy of an event like that, in order to get enough attention to make it to an event like that. I can’t count the hours, but I know very few people who would give up their evenings and weekends for 3+ years in hopes of making something out of it. So, I’m proud of us and I feel okay saying we deserved the invitation and we put on a good show and presented celebrities with products that we are incredibly proud to present.

And what came out of it, even from people we love, is just how little they believed in us prior to that event. Sadly, it took that event to buy us validation with some people who are supposed to be the closest to us. What a joke.

Entry Filed under: The Startup Phase