The Real Hustle: A Moment of Transparency

Hey E-preneur!

So I want to take a moment to share with you something that was once an embarrassment to me. If you remember, back on January 25, 2017, I quit my full-time job of 5 years and took the leap of faith to become a full-entrepreneur (take a look here). Everyone was so proud of me and expressed how brave I was to take this huge leap. I was very proud of myself for having the courage to do so.

Let me walk you through that journey since I am no longer ashamed of it. 

I quit my full-time job and decided to become a full-time entrepreneur with my two businesses VITAL XII and On Twelve Management. However, what I didn’t know is that it was going to take more hard work then just simply taking the leap of faith. At the time, I was taking online classes to receive my masters, so I had just received my financial aid check and I took out my 401K at my job. At first, money wasn’t really an issue (but not for long). I had plans to use that money for at least the next 6 months to live off of. 

A few weeks after I quit my full-time job I received my first real opportunity to make money with On Twelve Management. My uncle, who is my lifelong mentor, let me come work with him at his media and consulting company to help project-manage his clients. I was very thrilled to begin working with him because he is extremely knowledgeable in the business world. Everything was going great — we were traveling a lot, working with high profile clients, and making major moves. Keep in mind this wasn’t a full-time job, so I had to still make sure income was coming in elsewhere. I was working hard to make sales with VITAL XII and to find new clients with On Twelve, but it was much more challenging than I expected. 

Fast forward to around April 2017 (way before my 6 month mark) — I began to feel the struggle of running out of money and needed to do something fast WITHOUT going back to a 9-5 job. A friend told me about driving for Uber and if you know me, you know that’s something I did NOT want to do. I’m a natural introvert, so having to be around people, having them in my car, and participating in small talk was not what I wanted. I decided to start off by doing UberEats instead. It was actually pretty dope and a very cool concept. I could easily go to restaurants to pick up someone’s food and deliver it to their door and get paid instantly (without many people seeing me do it). Everything was going well with UberEats until another person recommended that I start doing regular Uber. Although I had my doubts, I just sucked it up and decided to give it a try. I started on a Saturday morning during Atlanta’s DragonCon weekend, which means it was extremely busy in the city. I made so much money that day in such a short amount of time and instantly fell in love with Uber and decided to continue to do it while growing my business (without actually telling my friends or other people that I was doing it). 

Uber was a great opportunity and I’m so thankful that they built this platform to allow entrepreneurs and freelancers to make money without having to give all of your time to a full-time job. After a while, I started doing Lyft at the same time so I can always have a ride request. I literally was doing Uber/Lyft for 8-10 hours a day, every single day! And still — only a handful of people even knew I was doing it. It was so embarrassing to announce to the world that you quit your job to become a full-time entrepreneur just for you to end up being a taxi driver, pretty much. But honestly, it was really a great experience. I had my laptop with me at all times and QuickTrip and Racetrac became my office. I would pull over when I didn’t have any ride requests, grab some coffee and go back to my car and work on my laptop from my phone's hotspot. One time I had a phone meeting with my uncle and I was at Quiktrip in my car, he was like “are you driving right now?” lol, the hustle was real. Another good thing was literally every rider asked me “so what do you do besides Uber/Lyft?” and that sparked the convo and allowed me to share my story and so many people were inspired by it. I’ve met some great people from doing Uber/Lyft. 

This all went on for almost 2 years. It was up until July 2018 that I did Uber/Lyft and the reason I stopped had to be a sign from God. I was at my cousin's house on a Thursday night playing cards and at about 1 am I went outside to get in my car and go home. However, my car wasn’t there. I freaked out because I knew I was up to date on my car note so I didn’t know what happened. I called the police and they filled out a police report and said they would let me know something the next morning. The entire night, I was in shambles because I was depending on my car to do Uber/Lyft the next day so I can pay my bills. I immediately began working on my resume the next morning because I knew I could no longer depend on my car in this situation. I was scrolling through IG and saw an ad for a job posting at a digital marketing company that I already worked with for another client. The application was super short, so I applied. I had a friend that was already working there, so I texted him and told him I applied. He immediately told his boss I applied and that day the boss followed up with me and we set up a phone interview for that Monday. Keep in mind that over the weekend my car was still not found and I was still in a panic. On Monday, I had the phone interview and everything went great so we scheduled an in-person interview for Wednesday (at that time I already knew they loved me and I would most likely get the job). Later on Monday, the police FINALLY called me to say that my car was towed because you’re not supposed to park on the street in my cousin’s neighborhood — WTF. I get my car back go to the interview on Wednesday and I was hired! Whoo-hoo! At that time I didn’t mind going back to a full-time job anymore because it was at a company doing what I love E-Commerce + Marketing. 

I say all of this to say: had I not thought my car was stolen that night, I would have never applied for that job and I would have probably still been doing Uber/Lyft to this day. I became comfortable with doing Uber/Lyft and was dependent on the money so I’m glad I was able to get out of that position and begin doing what I love, gaining more knowledge, and being able to apply it to my business. One thing about being a business owner is, YOU GOTTA DO WHAT YOU GOTTA DO! Don’t be embarrassed that you have to do things that you don’t want to do while you’re growing your business. Everything you do is a part of the process and there is purpose in your pain. Keep pushing and Get S#!T Done! 

Have you gone through any crazy hurdles to get to where you want to be e-preneur?