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.

I am really struggling with balancing my life. Yesterday, I saw my husband for 45 minutes. I was at Fumee working from noon until 3 AM and came back the next day at 10 AM. I am overwhelmed with the amount of work I have to do, and am frustrated with not seeing the fruits of this labor. The end of the year is especially tough, because I have MONTHS of accounting to catch up on, which is on top of all the blogging, twittering, processing inventory, processing orders, working in the store, running around doing errands for the store, etc.. etc…

I really want to start going to gym regularly again, but WHEN? I’d like to have a hot dinner on the table for my husband when he comes home from work, but WHEN? I’d really like to clean my house and do laundry, BUT WHEN?!?!

I could use another employee but can’t afford one. This must be the worst time period of having your own business- when the work far outweighs the help and the money.

I’ve recently launched The Association for Women Cigar Smokers, a non-profit that I’ve been planning to start for a few years now. The response has been great, except for one message board that I found it posted on, where the conversation quickly turned into “Oh I thought this was porn. Why isn’t this porn?” and then continued on for pages. Yes, thank you for completely degrading a project meant to advance the presence of women cigar smokers into a conversation about how women smoking cigars should only be relative if it’s pornography.

This non-profit has already taught me an interesting lesson- it’s easier to get things done when you relinquish control and let others help you. I know, everyone knows that. In theory. But in practice? I have a bit of Founder’s Syndrome, where it’s hard for me to trust that things are being done the way I’d like unless I’m doing it myself. But since I have my hands full with Fumée, and also to lend credibility to this new, non-profit group, I am asking others in the industry to help. Right now I’m gathering candidates to serve on the board, something that means I could eventually lose control of this association, but also means that I don’t have to do everything myself. I am actually looking forward to seeing how this turns out. In the last week, I’ve found a female ally who has already gone out of her way to promote this site. Every minute she spends doing that, is one less minute that I have to. I am definitely enjoying that. I’ve also created some surveys for men and women cigar smokers in conjunction with a friend in the industry from CigarResearch.com. His assistance has also meant less leg work for me, as well as an accountability to get things done when I say I will. So far, sharing the burden and asking for allies has been a pleasant experience. I may lose my Founder’s Syndrome quick if this keeps up!

Of course, this launch still means lots of work for me, exacerbated by the fact that we’re at a turning point with Fumée. We have to make some hard decisions this month, since our search for a retail site has so far been fruitless (if you know of anyone who owns commercial property in Texas and wants a tenant, please send them my way!). If we don’t find something soon, we’re going to have to adjust our original version of the business and try to find some compromise that will still be profitable. I have some pots in the fire, but little hope that any of them will actually pan out. It’s actually been a great source of depression for me in the last few weeks. I find myself swung into despair for varying time periods of every day while I ponder our options and worry. I’m usually a very positive and optimistic person, but these soul-crushing rejections from landlords has been quite discouraging for me. I can’t seem to stop getting my hopes up with each new space I find, only to have them completely dashed within weeks. It’s particularly hard, because no matter how long I stick with it, or what creative solutions I offer a landlord, I feel like I am bashing my shoulder up against a steel wall, trying to break it down. I can’t make people do what I want, I can’t force someone to rent to me, I can’t charm or beguile my way in, or dazzle them with my vision, so I feel particularly helpless here. It’s all a matter of luck and I have come across none. It’s one thing to persevere, and quite another to keep trying to something that may actually be impossible.

These next few weeks are pretty crucial for us. I expect a lot more stress, tears and frustrations. I expect that I will feel pretty miserable. Worse, I’m planning to go on the Quantum-Wellness 21-day cleanse on Monday, so the lack of booze, gluten, sugar and caffeine will probably only make me feel worse. I will how ever make one exception: if a retail space comes through for us in the next 21 days, I will drink a bottle of champagne all by myself to celebrate. 21 days, three weeks to discover the fate of my business. Gulp.

What they don’t tell you about owning your own business is that you’ll never sleep soundly again. It seems I cannot fall asleep anymore without lying in bed for hours, unable to turn off my mind. I lie there thinking “how can I get more investors?” “How much money will it cost me if I lease site A?” “Should we buy Yahoo ads?” “Don’t forget to work on X, Y and Z tomorrow.” On and on it goes, scenarios playing out in my mind, worries plaguing my thoughts, until hours have passed and I have to take a sleeping pill or somehow reset my mind and block out all of my thoughts. I’m tired.