A story of entrepreneurship & emotions

Photo By Alex Brogan [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

I grew up in Mexico. When I was little, perhaps around the age of 10, I came to my mother and asked if I could borrow 5 pesos from her, and I told her I’d pay her back 10 pesos one month from then. Today, that would be like asking for 5 euros. She lent me the money and she accompanied me to buy candies that I was planning to sell at school with a merchant’s mindset. Choosing my product was key: I sold the most delicious candy, the kind they didn’t sell at school. After a few weeks, I paid my mother back 10 pesos, and I continued with my entrepreneurship for a long time until the summer break came. She funded me a few other times if I needed to restock and I couldn’t afford it by myself. My mother’s initial trust in me, her support and the pride I felt for paying her back were very important to me. I managed, I called the shots, I sold on credit, I learned who not to trust (“I’ll pay you later, I don’t have any change on me”) and I lost money, but I learned from that.

This is one of the first memories that come to mind when I think about what goes through the head of an entrepreneur, although I’ve acquired some more experience along the way.

15 years later, I was already living in Madrid and my husband and I decided to start a new venture. We wanted to follow up on a business idea we had tried in college: a chain of silver costume jewellery stores and complementary accessories. It would be a business of our own, but it would also help our country, a major producer of silver. We spent what little savings we had, we asked for loans, we chose the location, we bought furniture, decorated it ourselves and we opened a very stylish shop. We did everything with our own hands, and we optimised every single resource as much as humanly possible. We had an employee who ran the store from Monday through Friday while we worked our regular jobs in order to keep food on our table, and we ran the store ourselves on Saturdays and Sundays. After a year and a half, when the crisis struck, we had to close shop. We had to summon up the courage to put an end to our commercial project, and we had to acknowledge that it was the right time to close shop so as to avoid heavier losses. From that time, I remember the intensity we felt at all levels. There was obviously professional intensity, but we also had a lot of emotional intensity. It was a year and a half where our lives circled around that project. It took over our thoughts, feelings, and ideas. That stage of my life shaped many of the things I am today, both professionally and personally.

Now I live surrounded by startups, fintechs and connections everywhere. But I never forget that even while living surrounded by so much technology all these founders - these friends - are people with their own stories. As in my story, we all grow learning from the dynamics of trust, and emotions shape our lives. I’m convinced that if we learn to understand and leverage on our own emotions in all interactions, this would be a much better, richer and more interconnected world. And of course, an the fast and varied entrepreneur world would be better too, more human.

I could continue talking about the dynamics inside and outside startups, but let’s leave it for another time!