Making friends: Throughout my entire life, I have been a working entrepreneur. I have logged in at times over 90 hours per week, working 2 jobs, and coming home to work on my own projects. I remember in particular, working on Lucky Girl,  Gross Product and Symind.

I had spent numerous hours working on business plans, creating catalogs, networking, trade show preparations, and making sales. I went from a clothing company to a computer and office equipment cleaning service (before this, I had written a business plan in high school for Raw Nature – Coffeehouse and Juice bar with live music lounge).

With Gross Product, I had worked with one of my closest and oldest friends Darius Gross, who now has been doing Decorative Concrete ever since then, under Concrete Fusion.  Darius had started Gross Product Clothing Company by designing and printing a couple of surf shirts. Through our friends, they had mentioned to him ” Hey, Steve has a laptop everywhere he goes, and knows it, you guys should work together”. I had created a business plan, and submitted it to my accounting / math teacher. He asked me what I was doing in his basic class, when I am writing business plans.

We made a catalog with clothing samples that are still relevant today (trucker hats and mesh clothing). Darius was ahead of his time, and others (who were doing our manufacturing) had taken his ideas. We barely got into one store, and after alot of time and money, we finally shut down. But I had spent 24 hours a day doing this business, trying to make it work. The only time I took off, was either going to the community college, which I later had to drop, or surfing (the entire passion behind this). I made a couple of friends, but not really. I had trademarked the name.

From Gross Product, I found an up and coming girls surf, skate, and snow clothing was only at 5% of the shelf space. I had created Lucky Girl. To keep with the topic of this post, I am not going to go off topic, but I was in 18 retail stores. I had created the logo, created the samples, did the photo shoot, created the catalog,  did a trade show with limited of resources. I did have freelance college help. Again, I spent alot of time alone.

After Gross Product, I had noticed an emerging market for Girls surf / skate / snow. I had created Lucky Girl Clothing Company. With this idea, I had created the product line, made samples, did a photo shoot, created a catalog, talked to the media (Surfer Girl Magazine was thought from a girl who emailed me from the University of San Francisco and loved the product line), did a trade show, and after making sales calls, Lucky Girl was in 18 retail stores. At this time, I was working from 6 am to 2  pm for a call center that was answering tech questions for the Palm 1 or 2, and from 4 pm to 10 pm as a waiter for Marie Calendars. I met some people, but no real friends. I have to admit though, if you ever want to meet interesting and fun people, get a job waiting tables.

Symind..Your Computer and Office equipment cleaning service. I am trying to remember when this started, but I do remember that it was a year or two after Lucky Girl. What I do remember, is that it was around 1999-2000. I was renting out a room in a house from an older woman in Oceanside. I had purchased an ACER PC from Best Buy. The kicker was that I had a fast cable modem. The entire internet thing was starting to explode all around me. Companies like Yahoo, Amazon, Ebay, and a bunch of others that were starting to disappear (I remember that someone was pitching an ugly horse trading website or something for as a possible IPO).

The San Diego Business Journal articles headline stated: Entrepreneur Cleans Up Dirt That Slips Into Computers. I was working around the clock.  I had a waiting position at a formal restaurant in Carlsbad for lunch and a waiting position at Country Club at night. I was working almost everyday. The other days or nights I would work on Symind. This was the time to make sure not only did I have a website, but I also needed to promote it. I met some people through work, but again, I was too busy on my company. The only time I had, was random bars for Coors lite beers and pool after midnight.

At age 35, I am finally starting to understand how family and friends are really important as you grow older. Being in Kauai, I am starting to learn and experience this from the friends that I am making.