I always knew, deep down, that one day I would “sell something”. Of course I sell my interior design services but these are not tangible, as all services are by definition. I felt that to fully accomplish myself as an entrepreneur, I needed to “touch”, to “choose” my products. To feel an emotion by offering it to my customers and seeing them walk away with their purchase with a smile on their face. When I was younger, in my early twenties, I had discovered cafes where you could buy a piece of ceramic and paint it yourself. Love at first sight for the activity: that's it, that's what I'll do for a living, I'm going to sell ceramic pieces that I've painted by hand! (Don't worry, the bubble didn't last long). A little later, during my meetings with a friend in the most beautiful cafes in town, it became clear: one day we would have our friendly little cafe together, we would take the time to chat with our customers, we would do it again the world around a good coffee with milk (while Santa Claus would take care of the accounts, the cleaning, the orders...). In short, you can imagine that this project remained at the dream stage and that both of us continued our professional path in the medical world. But all the same, these 2 anecdotes testify to the fact that I have always been an entrepreneur who did not know it! I felt all that but between feeling and taking action, there is a world! Especially when the feeling is rather well buried under a layer of “technical” considerations like:
- I already have a career that is going well, why take this risk?
- I do not have time.
- It will not pay enough and I unfortunately have to meet my basic needs (like paying my mortgage and my groceries, among others!)
- I'm afraid people won't like what I have to offer.
- Etc.
You know what I mean! Especially since after leaving the medical world, I was perfectly happy in my career as an interior designer (and still am!).
However, the ground was very fertile and it only took a professional thunderbolt to make me switch to the wonderful world of online commerce. A chance encounter with a household linen designer rekindled that spark and everything happened at lightning speed.