Heather Haddad

It seems that people think owning a business is all flowers and rainbows. You get to set your own hours! You get to hang out and smoke cigars and drink wine all day! You must make so much money! These things might be true of business owners who have known great success. For me, Fumee is still very much a start up. We are entering in our 7th month of business and it is still a hustle, every day.

I get one day off a week. On that day, I refuse to think of Fumee. On every other day, I work from the moment I wake until at least 11 PM. Occasionally I’ll take an hour or two for myself, but it’s never peaceful because I’m either thinking about the business or I’m getting phone calls regarding the business. A typical day for me will be to wake up at 10 AM, begin answering emails, writing our company newsletter or balancing our financing. Paying bills, making the employee schedule, writing press releases, ordering inventory, cleaning, or doing our taxes (which are paid monthly, quarterly, and annually. I am constantly doing taxes). About 3 times a week I have to run all around town in my car with no A/C buying soda, paper towels, honey, toilet paper, printer ink, whatever we’ve run out of. At 4 PM I go into work and work a shift where I try to strike a balance between providing excellent customer service and actually getting any administrative work done. As my customers are generally a  talkative bunch, it’s proved nearly impossible to get any other work done while I’m “on the floor”. I get off at 11 PM and go home to relax for a few hours and start it all over again. Some days, like tomorrow, are particularly jammed full, as I have a conference call at 9 AM for my new position on the board of the Texas Cigar Merchant Associaton, and at 3 PM I have a wine tasting to finalize our wine list.

I can’t say that I hate owning my own business, but I can’t say I love it right now, either. However I still can’t imagine working for someone else, so it’s certainly better than the alternative. What I am is very attached to this idea and hopeful that this will be very sucessful one day. I mentioned to a customer the other day that I am a dreamer, and he said “well that’s what keeps you coming in on the hard days- your dreams.” And it’s true. I dream of the day we finally get our liquor license (my WORD this has been a LONG process!) with which we will hopefully double our revenues. I dream of the day when I can pay myself for my hard work. I dream of the day when I don’t have a drive a car with no A/C and I can own my own home. I dream of the day when Fumee is profitable and we can live the life we want. Until then, it’s a lot of bills. Bills, bills, bills, constantly. Until I owned my own business I used to think $10,000 was a lot of money. Now I can spend that in a day, and I have. It’s a lot of worry. It’s a lot of sacrifice. But I’m trying to keep my eyes on the prize and concentrate not on our short term gains, but the long term wealth I am building.