On beginnings
Dear Counterpart,
I was thinking about beginnings today….This journey I’ve been on, trying to start a business.
The first time around with SafeRide AU, a little over a year ago, I let my imposter syndrome get the best of me. Maybe I just wasn’t ready yet. Fear and inexperience, or lack of money to back a wider leap, convinced me that a ride-share for kids would be too risky, too expensive, and I let my idea take a French exit. I did that after I’d already spoken SafeRide into existence, though, after I’d put it in the world. So, occasionally someone would ask me about it, and I’d feel ashamed for quiet-quitting myself out of another opportunity.
Then, in what could only be described as a Spotify intervention, a succession of podcasts made something click in my brain, sparked a little flame in my gut.
There was a run of them that month that kept circling inside my head. One was about purpose, about the real Why beneath what you do. I had started SafeRide as a straightforward Uber for families, something to address the logistics of getting kids around. But, when I actually sat with that podcast, I found my way back to the actual issue I’d lived myself more times than I could count. The gap where you need help and there’s no one to ask, no structure for it, just parents, like me, managing life on an island. I thought, if I’m going to rebuild, I’m going to pivot the focus entirely, away from a service and onto community, solving a real problem by connecting families. Which, now that I’m writing it to you, sounds a lot like what you’ve built Good Happenstance around.
That same week there was a Codie Sanchez episode where she asked, what would happen if you were to lock in for six months and give absolutely all you’ve got in you to make your business work? That question replayed in my mind for days.
Six months. All in. No hedging, no safety net excuse dressed up as caution. I realized I’d spent a whole year treating SafeRide like a rumor about myself, something I’d mentioned once and then let fade into nothingness, hoping nobody would follow up. And, I decided then and there that I would stop hoping nobody would ask and start doing. I changed the name to Círculo, and I rebuilt from the ground up.
Since then, it’s been one challenge after another. Not challenge in the negative sense of the word though. Challenge, like a goal I’ve set myself. Email a school, engage a Parent & Child Association, talk to a business leader. Each task helping to build my confidence, to empower me. Every response, every question people ask, creating substance and applying context to solve very real problems.
Last weekend, I did something that terrified me more than any of the technical work of designing a platform or operating the business. I started a social media campaign. Small, local, nothing dramatic. But,putting Círculo in front of actual families felt like standing in a doorway I’d been circling for a year. It’s been the same pattern every time. I’m finding that the more I speak to something out loud, in front of people who might push back, the more it becomes mine.
When you called me today, telling me you’re about to put Good Happenstance on LinkedIn, I heard myself in you. The second guessing. The wondering how to position it so it sounds right, so people take it seriously, so nobody sees the parts of you that still feel unsure. I don’t think that feeling ever fully goes away when you’re building something that matters to you. I think you just learn to keep moving with it sitting next to you instead of waiting for it to leave first.
I don’t know yet if six months of giving everything to this will be enough, or what enough even means. Maybe that’s the actual thing we’re both in the middle of, not the businesses themselves, but learning what it looks like to move even before we feel ready.
So, how’s it going for you and are you waiting for the doubt to leave first?
