Welcome to the most incredible journey of your life
I never thought I would find the man of my life on a plane. During that fateful flight back from a Sicilian weekend I had planned to put on my headphones and forget about everything else including my beloved job as an interior designer considering the period of high stress.
Instead I found myself talking to my neighbor the whole flight, which was probably a better way to pass the time. And I have to say, it turned out to be the most important two hours of my life!
Three years later, we were married with a son and had launched our online interior design startup.
I have discovered that there are strong similarities between building a relationship and building a startup, two paths of passion, in every sense! Especially if this path is perpendicular and arrives at the same time.
This is what the last few years of this crazy adventure have taught me.
Take the plunge but be prepared to start "slowly".
Take the plunge but be prepared to start "slowly".
I already knew that our paths would not separate after that flight, and so as our relationship blossomed, the idea of creating our own startup slowly made its way.
The initial concept came quickly on that flight, my knowledge of interior architecture and his knowledge of the e-commerce world quickly led us to understand that we could fit into an interesting niche market. We continued those conversations at length during dinners and aperitifs in the weeks and months to come.
But we knew we had to act calmly and only after having made our ideas clear. Also because we were surprised to discover aggressive competitors right in "our" field.
We went through countless revisions of our business model to get to our killer feature and find our distinctive identity thanks also to the help of some mentors. Communication is therefore always the key, both in relationships and in business.
It all happened so suddenly and it wouldn't have happened this way if events hadn't followed one another so quickly. While it's true that taking the plunge is important, it's also true that there are different phases to go through to bring something to fruition.
Stay creative
Stay creative
If we talk about an online interior design startup, creativity comes first as far as I'm concerned. The hardest thing, in every sense, is to differentiate yourself from your competitors while staying on top of the hottest trends. Being a couple has helped us with this, two people with different backgrounds who compare notes on the same subject matter help you think outside the box.
It is this approach to life and business that characterizes us. Of course, not all that glitters is gold, we probably spend weekends in Paris more often for work than for a romantic moment as a couple. It is the other side of the coin and you have to know how to manage it well, the risk is to ruin everything, absolutely everything!
Build every day
Build every day
You may already know everything about the industry you're launching your business in. Relationships work a little differently, though: you start with a leap in the dark and then little by little you start to get to know each other.
Checkpoints towards success, understood as the success of a business or a relationship, represent for me a fundamental concept to not get lost. Sometimes you don't understand if you have overcome an obstacle or if the obstacle has overcome you. In any case, keeping track of your progress and marking it with special appointments, an evening outside the box, a vacation, has helped me to have an increasingly clear vision of my path, as complex as it can sometimes be. And in any case, all this is part of the life and journey of a startup.
