It’s been six months since Leslie and I launched Holistic Happening. At the time, we had NO idea what we were doing. I mean, we still have no idea what we’re doing. But we’re doing something.
A year ago this time I had entrepreneurial dreams.
I was quickly realizing a traditional career path was not for me. Working at a desk, in an office, all day and spending all night blogging was starting to suck the life out of me. I wanted to be my own boss. But I also knew full-time blogging wasn’t the answer.
I’d spend every. single. shower. trying to come up with brilliant and feasible business ideas, pondering on being one of those adventist entrepreneurs to a full-time fitness coach. I knew I wanted to create something in the wellness space. Something that encouraged community.
And now I have Holistic Happening.
Leslie and I spent last Friday hopping around Manhattan + Brooklyn from business meeting to business meeting. As a classic introvert, meetings typically drain me. Instead, I came home so freaking pumped. Okay, and a little tired because we walked like 5+ miles.
I won’t pretend we’re making “big bucks” yet but our day of business meetings was an exciting glimpse at the path we’re heading towards. That entrepreneurial dream is coming true.
Now that it’s been six months and nine events later, I thought I’d give you a glimpse into the business and what I’ve learned since having this crazy little idea to throw a yoga + dinner party.
[What I’ve Learned from Building A Wellness Business]
✨ Collaboration is EVERYTHING.
I could not do this alone. Besides the fact that Leslie does all the cooking and I can’t cook to save my life, having a collaborator has been everything for me.
And this is coming from someone that lives alone and LOATHES group projects.
✨ Without someone to keep me accountable, I would’ve chickened out a long time ago.
I’ve wanted to cancel events before because I was scared no one would show up. Having someone else with skin in the game means I can’t quit when I get scared.
✨ Two heads are SO much better than one.
Hello, epic brainstorming sessions. Having someone to talk to that’s equally as passionate as you are about the business is helpful. When one of us is drawing blanks for a good, creative, solution, the other one always manages to swoop in. We both can look for different ideas to improve our business and decide on a few that both of us agree on. For instance, to set pricing for our services, we may both decide to use some market research data (perhaps acquired by the Gabor Granger pricing technique), even if the idea came from one of us.
Leslie and I are also very different in how we approach things. She’s more spiritual with a financial background. I’m more fitness-y with a creative background. We meet somewhere in the middle.
✨ We also don’t have to agree on everything.
And we’re both okay with that. I’m learning when to fight for my opinion and when to let go and say okay, she’s right.
It’s not always easy. I love being right…but that does not mean that I would be stubborn about something. If she appears to be more convinced about something, then I have no problem giving in. For instance, if she comes up with the idea of using a cash flow management software application to track business finances, I would probably not be arguing about not using it. Since this would make sense and bring us profits, I would readily agree with her.
✨ My undergraduate degree in theater isn’t totally useless.
In college I was actually required to take a class called COLLABORATION. Theater school is a weird, weird place. It ended up being one of the most useful classes I took in college and essentially taught me how to play nicely with others in a group setting. But it also taught me when to fight for my ideas.
Running a business is also pretty similar to creating a new show from scratch. My junior year of college I directed, choreographed and performed in my own, original, 20 minute dance piece.
It was a REALLY scary process for me and I was always an anxious mess before rehearsals with my cast. I also had to learn how to speak about my production to my peers, teachers and designers.
The process of building Holistic Happening has felt SUPER similar to creating that show junior year.
✨ It’s okay to fly by the seat of your pants.
At this point in time we’re taking things day by day.
Eventually we’ll be ready to hunker down and create a more concrete path of where we want to go and how we’re going to get there. But right now we’re feeling it out and learning what works and what doesn’t work. I like to think of it as still our building stage and our focus right now is growth and reaching new people.
✨ We don’t need to invest in everything now.
Our logo is pretty ghetto and designed by yours truly. As is our brand spankin’ new website. The truth is we’re not ready to invest in a graphic designer yet. And for now my ghetto photoshop skills are doing just fine.
Where we have decided to invest is in things like business cards and doing unpaid events that give us good exposure. We may also need to look into investing in an okr and tracking software as it could help in managing our finances in a better manner along with keeping track of the inventory.
✨ Failure isn’t a bad thing.
For our second event we only had four people attend. After a sold out first event I was devastated and felt like we totally failed and our little business was already doomed.
It ended up being a glorious evening and the small group meant the conversation was far more intimate.
We also decided last week to cancel this mega event we had been planning for next month because we weren’t ready. Leslie and I were both on the same page, thankfully, but it was still bittersweet to cancel something we had already started planning.
Cancelling the event means we can focus on making our smaller events even better.
✨ Creating something from the ground up is as magical as I dreamed it would be.
I love every aspect of what I get to do for Holistic Happening, whether it’s designing our graphics, managing our social media, teaching yoga or spreading the word about what we do. It’s taken me a long time to get here, career path after career path, but I think I finally found the right fit 🙂
[FYI, Upcoming Happenings…]
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I plan on keeping you guys posted on how things are doing. I know I love reading about how other people built their business from the ground up. In the meantime let me know if you have any special requests on the topic 🙂
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