Six Things We’ve Learned By Taking A Chance On US
Six years, where do we begin?
To say we are proud, grateful, motivated, inspired, fortunate, and so much more would be an understatement—we’re all those things and so much more. When we think back to the girls who came home from Hawaii 8 years ago with this idea—this vision, to where we are now, we are constantly reminded of how humbled and grateful we are. Growth and change—they go hand in hand — and while at times they can be both welcome and unwelcome, they’re all inevitable aspects of life. For us, when we think back to 6 years ago, to the scared girls who had no idea how opening a business in a city they had just moved to would go, to a community they didn’t know, we again, are truly flooded with perspective and admiration for growth and change. If we could tell our younger selves one thing right now it would be trust in your passion, trust in your belief. If you’re passionate, and if you believe, and you’re consistent, great things can and will happen. We’d tell those girls that taking a chance on yourself is going to be the scariest thing you’ll ever do, but you’re going to look back one day and be so grateful that you did.
In the last six years we’ve met some of the most wonderful people, people who have shaped us, changed us, and helped us grow into where we are today- customers who have become friends, children who we’ve watched grow up, some of whom we saw go from belly to bicycle– business partners, other business owners, like minded females, and so many others who have left a profound impact on us. Thank you for crossing paths with us, you’ve all inspired us in one way or another.
Growth is not necessarily age, it’s more reflection and understanding that things will change- they won’t be in your control, for one instance out of a hundred, a pandemic that lasted two years and counting; there are so many things that will be out of your control but as you grow you learn to adapt and change—you control how you’ll react and reflect.
When we think back to those girls from nearly 8 years ago, we’re reminded of how much we’ve grown. How we’ve gone from owning and operating a simple concept inspired by our time living in Hawaii, to a full-blown restaurant inspired by not only Hawaii, but our life, our travels, people, things, and how we’ve evolved as individuals all together. We’re not the same girls who stepped off that plane 8 years ago and, in this case, thank goodness. We don’t want to be those girls. We want to be the girls who have learned, grown, adapted, changed, took chances, failed, got back up, failed again, but kept on getting up. We wanted to reflect on 6 major things we’ve learned over the last six years.
1. You will fail.
It’s inevitable. You will try things, fail, try them again, fail again, give up briefly, and then you’ll try once more, and you’ll succeed. You’ll laugh so hard that you cannot believe you didn’t think of a solution sooner but there it was and you’re going to be so proud and so glad that you didn’t give up on you. As a business owner you’re going to constantly change ways of operating, make a lot of knee jerk reactions, and sometimes, they’ll flat out fail. If you do not fail, you do not change, you do not grow. Failure is a must.
2. Nobody is going to show up if you don’t show up.
Not your team members, not your customers, nobody. You’re going to need to wear every hat. You’re going to need to lead by example. You need to show up for you, or nobody else will. Growing a team to trust you, to be consistent for you, to believe in you will take a lot of time. Be patient, learn from your team, learn from your mistakes. Keep showing up even when it gets tough because nobody will show up if you do not show up for you.
3. You cannot rely on anyone else to teach you things.
You can get advice, ask all the questions in the world but they will not do it for you. You will need to learn how to do everything yourself first. It will not happen overnight, you again, will fail but you will learn. Things will break, technology will fail you, and there won’t always be time to wait for someone else to do it. You need to show up every day and be ready to wear every hat.
4. Intuition will guide you.
If something doesn’t feel right, look right—it’s probably not right. If your team isn’t acting right, if the work isn’t being done right, something is probably not right. And there’s always a chance it could be you, and there’s always a chance it could be something else. But you’ll need to fix it, and you’ll need to trust your gut- your instincts — anytime you feel something is wrong in order to make things right. There’s a time and a place to put your pride aside and make matters right, admit when things aren’t working, and make them right.
5. Your customers are your greatest market-research
You are not always right, and sometimes nor is the customer, but every single customer will have something to share and it’s worth listening to. You’re never above criticism. It’s your most valuable tool— without it there would seldom be growth.
6. Your community will be your greatest supporters.
You’ll always have your family and your close friends, but those who cheer you on from afar are not the ones who show up for you day in and day out. Your community are the ones who support you literally and figuratively- they buy a coffee from your store, they share word-of-mouth, they believe in your brand. You see most of your community more than you’ll see your closest friends. Never doubt the power of a killer community. Hoboken is our community; we truly do not know where we’d be if we did not start, set our roots, in a community like Hoboken first.