Is It Worth It?
Over the last several weeks, we’ve been hashing out our values with Vicky, our amazingly talented, patient (because it ain’t always easy working with the pair of us!) generous marketing goddess. Vicky is very good at reeling in my all over the place, squirrely brain, which also makes my much more grounded, detail oriented, laser sharp, talented co-founder, Gemma, incredibly happy.
Mega Magnificent Marketing Goddess, Vicky
Here are the five core values we’ve come up with so far. (Thanks, Vicky!)
INSPIRE - helping women to find their own voice and achieve their goals.
AUTHENTIC - facing opportunities and challenges with honesty and integrity.
COMMUNITY - to find solutions, support and solace with and from the people around you.
BALANCE – to achieve life and professional goals, with self and family wellbeing at the core.
HEART - work, live and love with passion, joy and humour.
It challenges me to think about which of these values I try to embody. I think that I’ve got the heart part down, I don’t think anyone who has ever met me would say I lack in passion. I’m challenged daily in being authentic, but I work at it.
Community- that’s something I have in droves and am so grateful for. It’s one of the driving motivators for why Gemma and I want to do this- we believe that community and connection should be at the heart of everything we do at Breaker. We are so thankful and vested in our own crews who help us through the hard times, and celebrate the good, that we want to create a space, physically and virtually where women can have the same. Feel heard, seen, supported.
Reading through these values, on the screen, they feel big. Arrogant even. Who are we, who am I to think that we can inspire others to find their own voice? Who am I to stand up on the pillar of balance? I’m sure my family and most of my friends would say that I’ve dropped off the side of the earth since attempting to build this start up. Even when my head isn’t buried in a laptop, this venture consumes me, my thoughts and my focus (which we’ve already established is hard to find at the best of times!).
The start-up has come at sometimes big sacrifices; financial, relational, emotional, time. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have moments where I think, is it worth it? The stress, the uncertainty, the lack of a pay check. I could just go back to a 9-5 gig, my kids are in school now, I could make decent money, we could be a lot more comfortable. We’d be stable, balanced. There wouldn’t be this looming cloud of uncertainty.
In an attempt to find some motivation, I googled successful start-ups that first failed. Very few women came up, I’m not sure if it’s because the successful women didn’t fail first, or more likely because there are less out there that have been able to take the plunge. Depending on what article you read, women receive between 1% and 3% of total venture capital.
That is just mind blowing to me. We make up approx. 50% of the population, and I appreciate that lots of women aren’t interested in forging a start up, but a lot of men aren’t either. So how is it that we only have access to between one and three percent of funding given to start ups?
We need to find a better way to break through the barrier, so that future generations of women have more opportunity.
So here I am. Regularly weighing the scales, trying to justify that it IS worth it. And I believe, I have to believe that it is, that what Gemma and I are building (with a team of supportive masters like Vicky who guide us along and keep me focused) is worth fighting for.
I want a better life work balance, but to achieve it, for me at least, I feel like I need to fight for it. I want my daughter to go into the world feeling less guilt about choosing family or a career. I want my sons to become men who aren’t conditioned to second guess the effectiveness or capability of a mother who’s returned to the office after a time out for maternity. And- when I google successful start up founders that failed before they succeeded, I want there to be more women in the mix.
