That First Business Card

I was in the fifth grade when I remember my mom telling me, "Brittani Ann Dunlap, you're going to need to be your own boss one day". . . Little did I know, this comment ignited quite the flame.

I recall spending my weekends on vistaprint.com making business cards for a variety of odd jobs I decided I was qualified to do. The one I took the furthest was "B.A.D Cleaning Services" and printed 100 business cards with my parent's phone number and home address (as if someone were going to send snail mail for a vacuum sesh?) Regardless, I walked door to door handing out my black and white business cards and ran home waiting for all of my leads to come flooding in.

Needless to say, that was one of my first lessons of 'rejection' because the only cleaning I was doing was my own room.

It was not long before I had a 'real job' AKA a W2. Isn't that the case though? We dream in our early years and we run as fast as we can toward our goal until we get derailed, by failure or opportunity, distracted by the 'should's of life?

Fast Forward 20 years, I met my now co-founder through a mutual friend. We were on a 3 hour and 42 minute flight from Austin to California, where he spoke for 3 hours and 13 minutes about this workflow automation platform he was building at his SaaS start up. At the time, I was working for a midsize technology company in Austin selling multimillion dollar government contracts and as one does three bloody Mary's deep I start challenging this stranger, my now co-founder. I pepper him with questions regarding the business, "What problem are you solving?" , "Who is your user? Who is your buyer? Are they the same person?", "What budget does this usually come from?", "How much are you charging and how did you land on pricing?".

It was not long before I began sharing unsolicited advice. I suggested he hire a sales director and I sent him over a job description with guidance as to where and when to post it. It's a surprise he ever spoke to me again after that flight. . . but through that conversation and the next several weeks my mind was racing with everything that this software could do. Once I saw a product demo, I was sold and had to be apart of it. After a few conversations it was settled, I was joining the team which also meant, I had to quit my 'real job' the secure, safe one I 'should' keep. . . as abrupt as it all was, this decision lead me down the best path I could have taken.

Here's to leaning into that child-like Brit from now on...Lucky us!

Thoughts? I'd love to hear them!