How did we get here?

Question: What do a liberal arts history degree, account management for libraries/bookstores/students looking to resell books, selling payroll to small businesses, managing customer experience for restaurants’ fry oil management, launching a product that cleans commercial kitchen exhaust systems, leading e-commerce promotions for furniture/home goods, and a MBA have in common?

Answer: All of the required experience to be the owner of The Mustache Cat (maybe I’m not a harsh enough judge)

Seriously though - the road of experiences (professional and academic) that have led me to The Mustache Cat were all incredibly important to give me the knowledge and confidence to start my own business.

The history degree fostered my love of stories and old stuff. The sales/account management helped me understand how important customer experience is to a successful business. The product launch role allowed me to run a small business within a big business and learn that no matter your ‘title’ you do what it takes as a team to win (including midnight restaurant visits and lobbying to change fire code). The e-commerce role provided first hand views into the importance of data in decision making, how to sell home goods effectively, and how to leverage a team to effectively scale ideas/projects. The Masters in Business brought it all together - giving me just enough knowledge to be ‘dangerous’ and know when I need to call in the professionals (accounting has never been my friend).

Like a good vintage piece, it’s all about the story. Though on paper my experience may seem a bit random, each move was made with intention to add knowledge/learnings and do more of what I love - building things that didn’t exist before and innovating processes/teams/products. Keeping the long term goal of owning my own business in mind as I made each move helped me feel as confident as possible about officially taking the leap (don’t know that I could ever feel 100% confident) and pursuing small business ownership.