52 Weeks a Stranger
It’s one of the longest war I’ve fought in my head. Starting a business isn’t something I’ve always fancied for not too meaningful reasons, but I knew I didn’t want that feeling of having to please a lot of people with either the products I sell or the services I render. Put simply, I didn’t want to sell anything to anyone!
I love growth and I was aware that it doesn’t happen when you’re stuck in your comfort zone. Challenges have a way of bringing out some part of us that we never knew existed.
Complementing the Holy Spirit in me reaffirming that I was going to do this were quotes like “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you desire” and “Everything you want is on the other side of fear”. I really didn’t want to because I was a complete stranger to entrepreneurship and nothing prepares you for the challenges of entrepreneurship. The best books can guide you but the challenges are going to be peculiar to you.
I started working on the logo of the business towards the last quarter of 2019 and at this time I was still unsure if I wanted to do this. I spent quality time with God on getting peculiar meanings to all the colours that make up the square in the Printlawn logo.
The day my co-founder (friend at the time) sent me the final logo design, I stared at it for so long and I really wanted to do it but the fear was still there.
I met two different people, one had more years of experience in the field than my age, and the other was a young person like me who I could relate with. After meeting with the both of them, my confidence level increased but yet, on some nights I felt like deleting the logo from my phone and behaving like the idea never happened.
“Do it afraid” was the tweet from Feranmi Ogundeko on a particular day in January and those words led me to do a deep reflection. I’ve had to handle a lot of rejection in the year before 2020 and I was still alive so what’s the fear for?
I called my co-founder (friend at the time) and told him I was going to send him some content for the launch campaign. I also asked for us to meet and I proposed if he could come on board as the lead designer and co-founder to compliment me ( I had no idea what I’ll be doing though) but I knew at that time designing wasn’t going to be one of it.
Like a kite in the sky, I was moving wherever without a proper direction. But I was documenting my mistakes and also ensuring not to repeat them.
I was a complete stranger to what I was doing but I kept doing it anyway.
For 52 weeks after February 13th, 2020, I’ve been walking, running and falling on a strange land and I seldom told friends who enquired about how I was fairing as an entrepreneur that I was enrolled in a real life MBA program.
The pandemic hit nearly two months after launch and I was clueless about what to do. I remember the Holy Spirit waking me up at 2am on a particular night and asking me “How is Printlawn?” I didn’t have an answer because I didn’t even know how I was fairing myself talk less of Printlawn.
Well that night, I sat on the dining table and I got the inspiration to iterate on the mode with which we were rendering our services. I came up with a new mode, didn’t know if it would work or not but well I implemented it weeks after that day and it worked.
For 52 weeks, I’ve lived in a strange land but I’m glad I stepped into the land. The experience has been thrilling and I’ve grown and added knowledge and experience I never knew existed.
Well, I’m renewing my visa in this strange but not so strange again land called “entrepreneurship” and I’m looking forward to all that the next 52 weeks have to offer me.
Maybe another 52 weeks from now you’ll get to read about my journey.
I hope to have more stories to tell.
