Entrepreneurs-Journey.com

By Danielle Rodgers from CloseConnexion

My journey into this crazy, amazing world started about 18 months ago. I like to think of it as a “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade” kind of story.

Apart from a brief stint in high school, my background is not entrepreneurial. For the most part I worked in the corporate sector, and hated almost every minute of it. Not that I have anything against the corporate world as such, but I personally could never get the hang of the politics. I found survival required about 10% talent, 90% political skill. I had never aspired to be a politician, so a few years ago I decided to jump ship and started my own little operation helping companies to communicate more effectively with their staff.

I had fun for a while and did okay, but was far from fulfilled. At the back of my mind, I had often dreamt of owning my own business (I sometimes marvel at the action that goes on in the back of our minds!), but didn’t have the first clue how to go about it or what to sell. In high school we had a great accounting teacher who gave us a project that required us to start and run a business. While the other girls tried peddling cosmetics, I convinced my group to start a soup stall in the courtyard, and we had a hungry customer base of students and teachers alike (only to be out-done later by a group of girls who decided to ditch Avon and start a hotdog stand. Lesson #1 – there’s a chance that someone will imitate your idea and improve on it!), so I was toying with the idea of something in food service. The only thing I could get excited about was a breakfast bar, but as much as I love cooked breakfasts it just wasn’t doing it for me. I came to the realisation that unless I had real passion for the idea I wasn’t going to be able to go the distance.

By late 2004 I knew it was “time”. I’ was over being self-employed – for me it was like working in the corporate sector minus the politics; much better, but not nearly rewarding enough. I made a decision to find a business venture and go for it.

Within no time at all a few opportunities presented themselves, but none flicked my switch. Then, through a series of events, most of which were very personal, in March 2005 the “big idea” came to me. I was so excited I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Talk about flick my switch, there was an overload at the main. It took over my mind and my life. It became a compulsion, something I had to do, and has remained that way ever since. It sounds a little bizarre, but I often feel that this project found me, not the other way around.

My “big idea” was to design a board game for singles that would achieve two things simultaneously: firstly it would address the issues that go hand-in-hand with dating, relationships and “starting over” while providing an effective means for singles to get to know each other. Because the issues involved are in fact quite serious, my mission was to make them more attractive and approachable by using a humourous, fun format.

The reason the idea was so compelling to me was due to a combination of my own experiences on the dating scene and what I had observed around me. I became aware that I had been closely analysing dating and relationship patterns and trends over a number of years and wasn’t exactly delighted about what I saw: “a merry-go-round of disasters” is probably one way to put it.

So began my noble mission to help people find their mate and develop better quality relationships! It’s certainly been the most exciting period of my life, and it’s addictive because I’ve never felt so alive.

Without a doubt the thing that has surprised me most is how it’s affected those closest to me. It seems no-one has been untouched. The range of emotions and reactions that have bubbled to the surface has quite literally astounded me, and this brings with it its own set of joys and sorrows.

So my journey has three aspects. Firstly there’s the personal side; how it’s affected me and the people in my life. Professionally, I see two distinct components (which connect and synergise at some point) – the creative process, which was a wild, crazy, exhilarating journey, and then the business aspect. I’m not sure which one is the most frustrating. Did I say frustrating? I mean “fun”… Actually some days it’s a lot of fun and some days it’s just plain scary.

Having just recently launched my business, offering Brisbane singles events, I now find myself face-to-face with the biggest scary monster of all: “Marketing”. Perhaps one of my biggest challenges lies in the fact that apart from being a new business, I have the additional challenge of a new concept. It’s one thing to try and sell something to people that they already “get” and another thing entirely to try and sell something they have no knowledge of.

An amusing conversation I had recently sums it up best. Having applied to sell my merchandise (fun items designed to increase friendliness and confidence) at the Eumundi markets – a favourite with locals and tourists alike – the market manager said to me, “in the five years that I’ve been managing this market I’ve never heard of anything like this.”

The theory is of course to first reach the “early adopters”, but putting that into practice brings its very own set of challenges. Where the heck are they and how do I know?

When I was working as a journalist, a few years back I did a story on a Brisbane-based businessman who started a designer-style café, about 12 years ago now, that specialised in desserts, fresh flowers and the promotion of local artists. He told me how he nearly starved for two years because at that time no-one in Brisbane could get the concept of going out just for dessert. Today they literally line up to get in. This guy has cult status. At the time of the interview he had just opened another new concept store and said he was so glad that he already had an established name so that this time around it would be so much easier to educate his customers.

Although I couldn’t relate to his experience at the time, I admire anything that’s pioneering so I loved writing his story. In recent months his words have come back to me repeatedly and I take heart that just because people aren’t exactly bashing my door down at the moment doesn’t mean they won’t be in future!

I recently received an amusing email from a friend titled “Things Learned the Hard Way”. The last one on the list reads: Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

Danielle Rodgers
CloseConnexion.com.au

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