Monday, November 19, 2007

Buy Jen's Stuff!!!

On Sunday, my daughter launched her budding entrepreneurial career with the opening of her online craft shop, JenniferShmennifer. It's a great store filled with an array of hand crafted items that I'm sure that you and yours would love for the holidays... and THAT is a completely unbiased and unsolicited opinion!

Sitting over chili for lunch the other day and talking about her work and her store I was struck by the fact that I was also 25 (assuming that you don't count my selling Grit newspapers at 13 or doing neighborhood gardening work at 15) when I started my first business, a custom photography company. That was followed three years later with the co-founding of BrierPatch Music, the record company I ran for nearly ten years; an adventure that took me through many changes and all around the world. Basically, I haven't had a "real job" since.

The thing is, watching Jennifer do this now I am struck by the way kids take elements from both parents (and other influences) to create the gumbo that becomes their own life. The engagement with the idea, the combination of playfulness and serious are recognizable to me as a kind of business attitude I possesed in spades back then and which I am to this day trying to hold on to as I begin some new ventures of my own. The orderliness and structure she is already building into her business is much more like her mother; it's a trait I would have done well to have a better handle on and I think it will stand her in good stead.

That said... the store, the goods, and the attitude about the whole thing are 100% Jennifer and it makes me happy and proud to watch from the sidelines as she begins this new project.

Check it out! Buy some stuff! Happy Holidays!

Go JenniferShmennifer!