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Growing pains of an adolescent business
By Davina
Farinola,
Owner Operator of
micro businesses Fluid Ink Letterpress www.fluidink.com.au
and Mini Ink baby photo cards www.miniink.com.au.
I have a meditation
podcast that I use to turn my mind off from the day’s babble and allow me to
sleep. Honestly, most of them are a little too much on the fruity side but they
tend to do the trick never the less. One of them has a section asking you to
define what you want out of life. It repeats ‘What do you want? in soft
meditative tones. (Just so you know ‘Shut up brain I want to sleeeeep’ doesn’t
work) As I ponder this, a good nights sleep is generally up there, but also,
guidance, a sign I’m heading in the right direction, a lotto win, perhaps a non
life threatening illness where the only cure is being fed through a drip, being
quarantined and made to sleep, read trashy magazines and watch TV for 7days…
Running a micro
business from home, raising 2 active young boys and participating in ‘growing
pains’ with my letterpress hobby – is tough. My hobby is making that awkward
transition into small business and like an acne infested 16yo boy with a
breaking voice, it is stretching and squeaking, resisting then blooming and
creating general chaos around our home. At times there will be a flash of
maturity and success, but otherwise, its growth although unstoppable and necessary,
is proving to be ungainly and exhausting.
On the difficult
days I’m thinking that running small businesses isn’t for me. There’s just too
much pressure, too many decisions and compromises. Working as a check out chick
seems so much simpler. Its what I did at Uni, it was fun and at least I would
be out of the house and the massive mound of ironing, breakfast dishes and
scattered papers wouldn’t be giving me the hairy eyeball. I’d be permitted to
come home and have a reason to be knackered. But alas, I’m a creator now, the supermarket
monotony would do me in. To stave off boredom I’d probably re-arrange the check
out chocolates by colour, size, or maybe even prettiness.
So what do I
want?
Well.. to be
recognized as a professional printer, for others to admire my work and to live
off the earnings. But with success comes a whole bucket-load of things I don’t
have or don’t like.
1.
Time & energy: Seriously,
if there was just a way that I could go to sleep past midnight and be able to
function properly before 10am, then I would be set. And would 3 extra hours
each day be too much to ask?
2.
Accounting. When you are forced
to ask your husband how to add 10% to a number for the 10th time,
accounting is definitely not your thing and unfortunately unless you can live
on ‘happy’, then its kind of necessary in business.
3.
Perfection: Since I am not
‘trained’ in letterpress, I have no printers certificate, I am self taught and no
- I don’t now everything yet. I’m petrified that someone will find out that I’m
perhaps not an expert, that there is more to learn and there are possibly others
out there who know more, have been doing it longer and have the tools,
equipment and finances to do it better.
4.
Confidence: I’m usually
referred to as ‘quirky’ or ‘ a little bit out there’, and I like that! I’m
quietly proud of thinking differently and I’m usually a pretty confident sort. However,
try and make me admit my stuff could be pretty good; well I squirm like a nerd
being chatted up by a buxom wench. And why? Because I believe– as many other
crafters do - that until (insert famous Hollywood actor/starlet here) owns
something that I have made, then its not quite fabulous yet!
5.
Doubt: What if I do this ‘for
real’ make a go of it and subsequently don’t like it and get bored, fail, or disappoint?
I have invested time and money, not to mention insisting my long suffering and
patient husband sub let a portion of his (our) man cave (shed) out to me.
So what I do know?
Thankfully, these
troubles are not unique. You are not alone. If you’re worried, have an issue or
a question, or just want to know that someone else in the world is also puzzled by the chaos that is math, you
should know, without a doubt, that someone
else is in the same predicament. Thanks to the magnificent world of internet,
forums, online teams social medias and such, there is always someone else
sharing advice and offering assistance and venting their own frustrations.
Seek advice but
listen to your heart – do not hesitate!
Be well read, but
make sure you write your own book - you know more than you think!
Think about your
lotto dream and what YOU want. If you did win lotto, would you still want to
make and create? If so, you can’t possibly go wrong!
