On a cross-country flight to San Francisco when my girls were 6 and 9 years old, my laptop battery died.
I put aside the work I planned to finish, and I started reflecting on how my path as an entrepreneur might influence my daughters.
Since they were so young, they only saw my role as their chauffeur, the packer of lunches, classroom helper, and playdate arranger.
But as they grow, how would my daughters think of me and my own career choices as the founder of a startup?
I had written messages that I hoped to share with them once they were older.
For years, interspersed in all of my notebooks, I journaled about “If for any reason.”
These notes to my daughters were my thoughts that if I was no longer alive, what I would want my daughters to know.
I imagined the value of them having these bits of advice, directly from me, as they were facing major life decisions.
Below are some of the thoughts I’d like to pass down to my kids about working through adversity, dreaming, and following their passion.
If for any reason… My thoughts about Passion
You get to decide how to spend your life.
You are never truly trapped.
There are always options.
You may not like the choices you think you have, but there is always another way around the obstacles you are facing.
Think about what you are truly passionate about.
Live for that.
Focus on that.
Let others see the gleam in your eye when you speak about it.
They will support you.
They will follow you.
Don’t ever let work become just a job.
Find some cause, some purpose, some underlying reason, and cheerfully pursue it.
If you do this, I know you can accomplish great things.
If for any reason… Reflecting on starting a company
I often wonder what the world will be like for you as an adult.
Many of the challenges I’ve faced as a female technologist, I hope that the stereotypes I (and other women) are breaking, make the road a bit easier for you to travel.
When people ask me why I started Plum Analytics, I tell them of the moment when I knew I was “at the wrong side of the table.”
I was working at a large company and I was a part of a due diligence team where we were evaluating whether to acquire a startup.
Sitting in a conference room on the side of the table with all the other suits, looking across the table at the entrepreneurs.
I was battling office politics and working hard to convince others to take risks to grow our business.
Across the table, I saw the bright-eyed entrepreneurs, going against the odds to build something they believed in.
I knew I was on the wrong side of the table.
I called your dad from my hotel room that night and told him I would be quitting my job soon.
Roughly 2 months later, I did.
I hope when you have moments of clarity about how you should be spending your life:
you listen closely to your heart,
make a plan to get there,
and pursue it relentlessly.
That doesn’t mean it will be easy
Telling a story like that is easy.
It almost seems romantic in some ways.
But, even with the best planning, there was a lot that I thought I knew but didn’t.
If for any reason… How to start from nothing
I had consulted for a decade for early-stage companies and had done many entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial projects, but early in the life cycle of Plum, I found the first big challenge.
It is really hard to start from nothing – no seed funding, no day job.
Those early days were different than any other entrepreneurial thing I had done. Much harder.
Day by day, step by step, we found a way through.
What led to my success was surrounding myself with other people who supported me.
Your dad, our family, my co-founder, and the team we recruited to work together with us.
Without that group of people around me, the road would have been much harder.
Choose your circle of people wisely.
If for any reason… What knocked me off my feet
Having been through the highs and lows of startups before, I thought I’d be more zen about the roller coaster.
Brad Feld wrote a great post about vomit moments.
He describes it as “it’s that moment where a specific thing happens that cause you to want to run into the bathroom and vomit, which you sometimes do.”
As an entrepreneur, in the 16 months since starting Plum, I’ve had my fair share of vomit moments both personally and professionally:
- Checking email during a layover on my way to the public launch of our site, and realized our site was up, but all data had been deleted. Having to hop back on the plane, contemplating how it happened and thinking we had been maliciously hacked.
- Finding out my dad’s femur shattered BECAUSE HE HAD CANCER.
- Finding out he died.
There have been so many impossibly hard moments for me.
Life is like that sometimes.
And how do you make it through them?
For me, it is to cope through focus.
Sometimes, that is hard, especially when stress levels feel like they are at an all-time high.
So, for example, during the darkest times, I could still find a way, to get back to focusing on making my company successful.
Why was it important enough to pull me through?
It comes back to passion.
I know, without a doubt, that the work I am doing is important.
We can change how research is done, change the pace of discovery, and make a difference.
I hope, years from now, when you are working on something you are passionate about it will both inspire you and ground you.
I think, in some ways, even as young kids, you know that my work is more than a job, to make money, to buy you toys.
Abby, when you were starting second grade, you brought home a paper you had filled out during school to introduce yourself to the classroom.
On it, you had to write what you were most proud of and why.
You answered, “My Mom – because she helps libraries.”
Maybe you do see more than I realize.
