The entrepreneur

Had I known what I know now a few years ago, I would have known that being self-employed was an almost inevitable thing in my life. Of course, it would have spared me from a lot of "What do I do with my life" crises. After being self-employed for the last five years of my life, I finally realized that this is not a phase, but the blessed pattern for years to come. Blessed because I am one of the few women who can bake the pie and eat it too! I get to work from home and take care of my baby. As I reflect on the decisions and journeys that led me here, stories of my entrepreneurial spirit come to mind. My first business was when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade! Here's a list of businesses I had as a child:

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1- Telephone cord jewelry: I grew up in a small town, where my parents felt safe letting us play on the streets and riding our bicycles around the subdivision. One of the advantages to that was that I was comfortable offering my products to neighbors and strangers alike. What were my products? Well, before there were cell phones, we had phones with cords (cables) long, long cords that you could pull around the house so that you could move freely while still talking. Those cords were a series of wires individually covered with colorful plastic. If you had extra telephone cord, you could take out those wires and make some really cool jewelry. We spent hours working on bracelets, necklaces and rings. The rings would have some of the wires curled up with a screw! Those were such eye-poking hazards! It was good business! We went around the houses offering our "amazing" jewelry and people actually bought them. Since I was financially ignorant, all that money went right into the pockets of the candy store owner.

2- Christmas caroling: One Christmas, my cousins, my siblings and I went house by house caroling (loudly) to all the neighbors. We each had a noise-making contraption, not necessarily called instrument, and one of us carried the cup we used for "donations!" We sang, employed puppy-dog faces, and waited for the clinking sound of coins in our cup. Some people even gave us dollar bills, probably to make us shut up and go away...

3- Pro-bono private investigator: I also had my share of prospective businesses I could have developed further if I had known there were clients out there. Our two-story home provided the perfect vintage point for watching the "drug dealers" my friends and I saw just sitting at the nearby bleachers. Granted, we never saw any drugs, but we sure had some good suspicions. We were brave! We used our garage-sale walkie talkies--the ones you had to tape together to keep the battery from falling out--our imaginations, and our note pads to keep record of all we saw in case the police needed any of our reports.

Dressed up for our first and only gig

4- Klowns Unlimited: This was by far the worst idea. A good friend of mine and I decided that we were silly enough to try to package ourselves as official birthday clowns. We spent so many hours developing our business plan, a good 5 or 6. We probably spent more time coming up with the clown names, which also did not pay off. We both had names that started with the letter K, so we looked in a dictionary for words with K that sounded clownish. Good grief! I ended up as Kibitz and my friend took Keenly. The business name: Klowns Unlimited (gag). I invested in a magic kit, my mom made our costumes, including cardboard and foam shoes (which we stapled together...), we bought wigs, clown makeup and noses, and topped the outfit  with hats we already had. Our marketing plan was, well, I don't think it even counts as marketing... We took a binder, yes, a school binder, and wrote our business name on white paper. Then we carried that tiny paper hanging on the binder around all the subdivision (the same one that had seen my successful phone cord jewelry phenomenon) hoping to get seen by clueless parents who would pay to have such clowns perform at their kids b-day parties. The worst part of all of this story, is that I was almost 15 years old! We did get one client, but we didn't charge him because we were trying to get the word out about our business (another marvelous marketing strategy). Plus, we had issues at that party with our shoes. Remember the staples? Yes, our feet do too. After that exhausting day, I got hired  for another b-day party for a whopping $10. After that, we closed the business.

5- Stationary sales: I don't remember the name of the company, but I sold stationary and tin cans filled with peanut brittle quite a few times. Raised in a Hispanic culture, I have no clue how I sold so much from that magazine, which had nothing to do with my Latino society. What was the name of that company?

6- Surfer jewelry: When I was a teenager, I went back to the jewelry business, this time selling necklaces made with actual beads. There was a "surfer fashion" moment going on in my island at the time and I took good advantage of the opportunity. We called them "pucas." I also explored paper beads. I was really devoted for some time...

Of course I also sold candy bars several times and in my college years I had my share of garage sales to pay for summer trips. All in all, I've been business-oriented for many years and I'm glad it's finally paying off! I would certainly have it no other way.