Lessons From a Father

My father wasn’t a businessman- at least according to him. A free, wild soul, a cowboy, my father never worked for anyone other than himself. Sounds like an entrepreneur, but he would have hated it if you had ever called him that.

My dad was a photographer, and a damn good one at that. He held some large contracts in his career, but ultimately traveled and photographed what he found beautiful in life. A tree catching a summer morning’s sun, or the stray smile of a passerby, he was always so great at picking out beauty and joy in the world around him, framing it perfectly in a photograph. Earlier on in life, I would ask him for lessons, and he would always just tell me “just find the most beautiful thing around you, point, and click. It’s easy!”

I may have never quite grasped that apparent ease with which he photographed, but over the years a lot of what he embodied in life has translated to how I approach business.

Entrepreneurship and running a start-up are incredibly difficult. The chance to fail completely is so high, and comes at you at every turn. The market throws you complete curveballs on a regular basis, no matter how prepared you are or how robust your financial models are. The one thing that has kept me going through three years of bootstrapping and anxiety? Being in love with what I do.

My dad would always remind me that it didn’t matter what I did if it wasn’t something that was worth doing- either for myself or for society. If there was no beauty in my goals and aspirations, why not find something where there was? This has been the engine that has driven me through a mire of pitfalls; do I believe in the mission of my company? Is the vision beautiful enough to pursue? The answer to that is always yes, and so despite running a startup in the middle of the world’s worst global pandemic, and despite the very real possibility of economic recession, it is easy being an entrepreneur. Happy Father’s Day to all of you out there.