Post by Josh Snider on Mar 29, 2014 9:10:59 GMT -5
As an expecting father and former business owner, I look toward the future to see where my life will take me next. While I can put things in place and do what I can to influence my fate, the path is never what was originally imagined.
The future is bright.
So bright that I can’t quite see it yet. I’m living in a somewhat new town, and my expecting wife is right here along with me. I’m holding my cards close and taking every risk as if everything depends on it. Because it does.
Let me sum up how I got to this point. To start with, my brother and I grew up daydreaming of business ownership. At twelve years old I was doing a horrible job “hand-crafting” skateboards and giving them away to my friends. In high-school I started a record label, but the plan changed. Looking for an alternative to advertising, my brother and I started a music magazine. In addition, with a background in screen printing (custom shirts) the record label offered bands that we signed “at-cost merchandise.” That died off when more people wanted merchandise from us than anything that had to do with the record label. The screen printing business took off, my parents were very supportive and lent their resources and space in the garage. But we outgrew it, moved to bigger locations twice, had a hand-full of employees, a quarter-million in equipment, and over a thousand customers.
When we started the business, we had nothing to lose. Literally. No house, no kids, nothing too serious. This gave us the means to emotionally, mentally, and physically put everything we had into the business for seven years.
We sold the business after my brother and I were looking to move from Southern California to Pittsburgh. With the equipment, staff, and local customers we found it better to sell the turn-key business rather than move it. The business is still successful and growing today.
I think this blog will be a good outlet for me. I have a lot of experiences l’d like to talk about. Thank you for reading!
The future is bright.
So bright that I can’t quite see it yet. I’m living in a somewhat new town, and my expecting wife is right here along with me. I’m holding my cards close and taking every risk as if everything depends on it. Because it does.
Let me sum up how I got to this point. To start with, my brother and I grew up daydreaming of business ownership. At twelve years old I was doing a horrible job “hand-crafting” skateboards and giving them away to my friends. In high-school I started a record label, but the plan changed. Looking for an alternative to advertising, my brother and I started a music magazine. In addition, with a background in screen printing (custom shirts) the record label offered bands that we signed “at-cost merchandise.” That died off when more people wanted merchandise from us than anything that had to do with the record label. The screen printing business took off, my parents were very supportive and lent their resources and space in the garage. But we outgrew it, moved to bigger locations twice, had a hand-full of employees, a quarter-million in equipment, and over a thousand customers.
When we started the business, we had nothing to lose. Literally. No house, no kids, nothing too serious. This gave us the means to emotionally, mentally, and physically put everything we had into the business for seven years.
We sold the business after my brother and I were looking to move from Southern California to Pittsburgh. With the equipment, staff, and local customers we found it better to sell the turn-key business rather than move it. The business is still successful and growing today.
I think this blog will be a good outlet for me. I have a lot of experiences l’d like to talk about. Thank you for reading!