Eight Years Ago

Eight Years Ago

My very first event.

A little over eight years ago today I did my very first event. I had been making a few items as a hobby and dreamed of owning my own business.

I found a story about an upcoming market in Fresh Water Cleveland. I applied and got in. I didn’t know what I was doing.

The week before I had to figure out how to take credit card payments. I don’t think I had any packaging. If you bought something you just put it in your pocket. We put price tags on things after we got there. I think I was still pricing my work using the “Hmm, how much would I pay for this?” method. The table my display is on isn’t mine.

I made $337.00 that day. That was more than I made in a day waiting tables (my day job at the time). I forgot to account for the weeks worth of labor that led up to that day.

I remember selling a leather double wrap bracelet to Rick (of Rick & Randy ((HI RICK AND RANDY)). I made my first vendor friends. I learned all about how much I didn’t know.

After this first event I would do at least one event a month for the next five years. You pick up all kinds of useful skills. How to park aggressively and in unusual locations. How to properly ballast your show tent in high winds (4” pvc tubes filled with cement). How to make friends at 5am in the rain

The most useful lesson is one of resilience. It’s hard to spend a day not selling a thing, worrying about your future, and still keep a friendly smile on your face. Once you have a year’s worth of shows under your belt you’ll learn there is no rhyme or reason to it. Sometimes you kill it. Sometimes you don’t even sell enough to cover the fee you paid to have a table there.

I don’t do events like this much any more. The landscape has changed. When I started there weren’t many markets around like this. Then there were too many.

I miss them a little. I don’t miss setting up a tent at 4am. Nor do I miss standing in a field of asphalt all day in the middle of the summer heat.

But I miss my friends. I miss the camaraderie of being in it together. I miss the excited faces of people seeing new things. I miss getting to watch people interact with something I had made.

Running your own business is the path less traveled. You spend much of your time out in the weeds hoping you’re going the right direction. But then when you take a look back at where you’ve come from all those twists and turns make more sense.

There is nowhere I’d rather be.

The goods. Feb 23rd. 2013.