Starting a New Business is Hard
Yes, we know you told us so.
When we started Black Rose back in July of 2017 with a handful of lofty aspirations and a passion to provide quality t-shirts to the population of Ocala, we had no idea how hard it would be to make our dream a reality. Sure, we had the vision, we had the talent, and we had the unwavering desire to put the competition out of business with how awesome we were, but the nagging little details of perfecting each tiny aspect of setting up a business became nothing short of daunting. We knew that we had to do it anyway. In the immortal, stolen words of Michael Scott - "You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don't take."
Seriously - we thought that raising a three-year-old was tough work but we've got this new baby named Black Rose and she's a beast.
Not to say that you don't get to learn all kinds of new and exciting skills along the way - you definitely become a jack-of-all-trades during this experience. For instance, where else could we discover the sheer joy of SEO (search engine optimization), choosing who to advertise with, and managing multiple social media platforms all while actually trying to get work done. As Aladdin would say, it's a "whole new world" except there's no magic carpet, no genie in a lamp, and everything is on fire. Disclaimer: nothing is actually on fire. On top of being dually (technically tripley) employed, full-time parents, and involved in our church in several different ministries, we now found ourselves hoisted into the world of the unknown with all sorts of new tidbits to worry about. We had the will-power, the natural-born talent, the desire, the equipment (thanks Ryonet) but how were we going to get customers? How were we going to learn accounting? How were we going to be able to binge watch Netflix or play Xbox anymore?
Just kidding. Our three-year-old doesn't let us do any of those things anyway.
We've almost exclusively been able to launch this new chapter of our lives all by ourselves which definitely feels like a major accomplishment (yay, we're adulting!) and even though we're tempted to look too far ahead and doubt ourselves, we still have a lot to be proud of already. Starting a business is hard, but we're confident that given a little bit of time and playing the oh-so-enjoyable patience game we'll finally be able to live out that old adage:
