If you would’ve told me that being a fish monger at age 12 would have led me to the entrepreneurial journey I’ve been on for decades, I never would’ve believed you.
All my menial jobs mattered. Every friendship, mentor and other relationships mattered. Every success mattered. Most importantly, every failure mattered,
They make me who I am today.
When Mike O’Rielly handed me the key to the fish store when I was 12 years old, that was a defining moment for me. I didn’t think much of it until after college and then the internet was born commercially.
Working for a $6 billion tech start-up was an incredible experience, but when the dot.com bubble burst, all bets were off. Many of my former co-workers, who were 10-15 years older than me, lost their 401k’s from Worldcom. Some were worth tens of millions of dollars.
If that wasn’t bad enough, then 911 happened and I had a front row seat a few blocks away.
As we were running for our lives, I remembered that boy from the fish store getting the key from Mike. That’s what I wanted to do but had no idea how.
I was fortunate to be accepted into Fordham University Graduate School of Business where I spent the next 4 years learning about business, making sense of the chaos from the dot.com era and experiencing entrepreneurship first hand.
I graduated in 2006 and then decided to leave my cushy job at BT at the end of 2007 to launch a site called neighborbee that aspired to be the Facebook of neighborhoods by providing private social networks to coops and condos in NYC.
Then the financial crisis of 2008 happened and in parallel, I failed at developing the site you see below.
Everything matters. All experiences in your life, good, bad or indifferent puts you on paths you probably haven’t anticipated.
Love what you do, so you can weather the storms and sail to better weather.
One Response
Very impressive, well thought-out and well written. You will always be a success in our eyes. Follow your dreams and stay- the-course.
Dad