How it Began

My last entry I welcomed you back to my blog with a general update of what I have been through since I last put “pen to pad”. 

I’ve titled this chapter of my blog “Growing Pains”. Every small business, I take that back, every business experiences them. To reach its optimum potential every business must at some point experience growth. How an organization manages growth defines the amount of pain that it experiences and how successful it will be on the other side of this process. Leaf It To Us is no different. 

I started Leaf It To Us in August of 2008. The U.S. economy was in complete chaos and I had just been laid off from a union shop that in over 70 years of existence had never had to lay off an employee. My journey began by answering a Craigslist ad. This led to that family referring me to their neighbors and another referral from that and soon it was off to the races. I survived the rest of 2008 and a brutal 2009 by answering subsequent craigslist ads and the referrals that came from an honest days’ work. 

The ability to provide the basic necessities for myself and my family, rekindled an old spark of mine to go into business for myself. Seeing many of my former co-workers, with much greater tenure than I had, still had not been called back to work during the summer of 2009 served to reinforce my decision to go it on my own. It was by no means easy. There were many times when the work was slow and I questioned myself. I also did not have a lot of support at home.

Even as we managed and struggled through, my wife did not believe in my entrepreneurial spirit. The second manufactures began putting out “help wanted signs” my wife began saying that it was time for me to give up this “thing” and go work for someone else. I knew however that I had latched on to something that if developed could allow me to fulfill my dreams. Sometimes the “Growing Pains” of a small business are not exclusive to the business itself but actually include your domestic situation.