Jumping in
AS THE FORMER OWNER of a (very, very) small business, I have enormous respect for entrepreneurs. My enterprise was built on a whim: I enjoyed making humorous collages, and it seemed like they would look good on T-shirts. As I remember it, the whole experience was like jumping into a swift river: Driven by my enthusiasm for the product, I picked up whatever skills were needed along the way, from various printing techniques to bookkeeping to some rudimentary business law and practices. In keeping with this analogy, I often felt the sink-or-swim imperative, and swim I did, exhibiting my goods at trade shows and selling direct via mail order as well. The shirts developed a cult following (particularly in Australia, for some inexplicable reason!), and I kept going for close to two years. Then, one late evening, holed up in the attic space I used as my work room, I reached an epiphany. It was a hot night, made hotter by the 200-degree heat press I was using to transfer the design to the shirts. Feeling like a sweaty garment worker from the early 20th century, I realized that I had taken the business as far as I could, within the means I had available. In order for it to become lucrative enough for me to consider quitting my day job, I would need a fairly substantial infusion of cash. I wasn’t ready to take that step, so I shut my business down.
Although I never made a fortune, my T-shirt enterprise allowed me to experience the great pride to be found in creating something all your own, and the thrill when people respond to your product. When I read about the businesses in our story, “Meet the Disruptors,” which starts on page 42, I experience that same pride and thrill vicariously. Big or small, new or established, entrepreneurs make our community vibrant, in ways that include, but go beyond, providing jobs and revenues. Please join me in saluting them.
We are now in the depths of winter, and I’ve made a point of finding different ways to enjoy the cold weather. So I was thrilled to learn that we are experiencing an influx (“irruption” is the technical term) of snowy owls in Wisconsin this year. You can read about this phenomenon on page 28. In the meantime, I’m planning to drive a little ways north to see if I can spot one. If I do, it will be one more item to add to my list of things that make Wisconsin wonderful, even when it’s 2 below.