I'll be speaking at Vermont Venture Network's monthly meeting on Thursday October 25th at 8:00 a.m. at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Burlington.
This is quite an honor as well as an opportunity for me to meet venture capitalists, investors, and local business movers and shakers. As Vermont Shortbread Company grows, I anticipate the need to move our production to a bigger facility. And I will need to learn the language of the people who can help me. I've always had zero interest in this kind of talk...until...I was applying the numbers to my own business, my own life, thinking about my personal future, thinking, on a recent vacation, about my vision five years down the road when I turn 50 and the kids are gone. Suddenly, it's enthralling. Yes, it's all pretty big and exciting to this former tech writing nerd who never took a business course in her life and eschews most things left-brained.
Don't worry, though. We're not big and famous yet. Vermont Shortbread Company is still full of homespun, handmade Vermont lore and all-natural ingredients. It's still made with love, imagination, and tender care by human hands to create that slightly imperfect, unique-like-a-snowflake, gourmet shortbread we've come to know and love. And yours truly still gets up at ungodly hours to bake, package, deliver, and market.
It's now been six months since I last walked out of the IBM plant and my technical writing career. Not a day goes by that I don't think about how relatively easy life was there - a regular paycheck, bosses who weren't breathing down my shoulder, the freedom to work at home as I pleased, a bit of an old boys' country club at times...and how my colleagues and I were always on eggshells wondering, "Will I be the next one laid off?" Everyone wore the IBM mask marked by grayish facial pallor brought on by dingy metal walls separating dusty, circa 1970 cubicles, a steady diet of Fritos, layoff-phobia, and bad fluorescent lighting.
While the memory of the actual work I did at IBM is fading (I can't remember product names anymore), my unemployment claim has run out, and I am truly living a financial existence without a regular paycheck and worry often keeps me awake at night (but it doesn't seem so painful if I know I can take a nap or play 9 holes of golf the next day at will), one thing remains constant. I know that I can never be laid off. I know I am not a victim of the whims of the stock market and fickle mutual funds. I do not depend on alimony or child support, not because I can't collect them but because I choose not to. It's about freedom. I know that investments into my business are far safer and saner investment than the ones I made into my 401k. Why? Because I know the business plan. I've written the "prospectus"! I know the people in charge. I trust them. I trust me.
So, I'm getting together with a trusted adviser on Thursday night to put together the presentation for the Vermont Venture Network. It's all new stuff to me. Numbers, projections, yada, yada, yada...and I'm not going to lie - I'm anxious. And then I realize...my only job is to give accurate information, endear myself to the audience, and just simply tell my story.
Oh yeah, I've been doing that for Vermont Shortbread Company for 11 years now. Practice, schmactice- I know what to do. Piece 'o cake - ummmmm...I mean...piece 'o shortbread.
