Matt and Sabina were a few minutes late in arriving. Matt still couldn't believe that it had been almost three years since he launched the business and had reconnected with the Third Shift Entrepreneurs. The drive out to Emerson House was about two hours deep into the country, and they waited a bit to leave so Ella could take her afternoon nap in the car.
Pulling up to the house, it was actually better than Cedric had described it or the photos on Instagram and the website showed it to be. A wide, set-back driveway, dramatic black paint job accentuated by white window frames, lush and varied trees throughout the property, up lighting across the yard, and a dramatic set of double doors to welcome you in atop the slate stairs. Originally an old farmhouse, prior owners had expanded it and built atop it eight additional bedrooms and bathrooms to make the full conversion to bed and breakfast while preserving the facade. This significant home and estate were unlike anything within miles, which was otherwise a sparsely populated rural area with working farms. Driving for an hour without seeing much of anything and then arriving at this majestic retreat property made it all the more exceptional.
With Ella still asleep in his arms, Matt rang the doorbell. Cedric answered the door. “Welcome to Emerson House!”
Sabina handed Cedric a bottle of celebratory champagne as they exchanged hugs and greetings.
There was laughter, many conversations, and music coming from inside and as Matt and Sabina made their way through the grand foyer, they saw all the Third Shift crew assembled.
“You made it!” exclaimed Yisel, who along with the others exchanged warm hugs and welcomes.
“And this must be Ella!” Kim immediately went to go grab the two-year-old, who had since woken up. “Look at her! Those eyes are all you, Sabina…I haven't seen her since she was six months old.”
Reunion gatherings like this had become increasingly rare as life and business for everyone had become more and more demanding, but the opening of Cedric's and Janelle's retreat center had been cause for celebration and a reason to reconvene again. It wasn't for lack of desire to get together – the group remained close and was frequently on email, checking in with each other, texting for input, and holding each other accountable. At some point, however, the flywheel of success had begun to kick in for each person's aspirations and the hard work of creating something from nothing was replaced by the hard work of supporting customers, new opportunities, and growing. The need for accountability was replaced by the desire for just the warm friendships and support as everyone's business began to take hold.
Renault called the group together. “Friends, I want to invite you to gather around.”
“It wouldn't be a Third Shift Entrepreneur get-together if Renault didn't have us share something with the group,” Alberto observed as others laughed at what they had also been thinking.
“Now I don't want to stop the fun here, but I know that there is a lot to share, and I would be remiss not to ask everyone to tell us not only what you have been up to, but, more importantly, what you have learned. And I can't think of a better place to have this conversation than the newly revealed Emerson House!” Renault swept his arm across the room as if to reveal the house.
The small group offered a raucous round of applause as Cedric grabbed his wife Janelle's hand. They both took a playful bow.
“Well, yes – it's open!” Cedric began, “It's been a journey. I think we were probably a year later than we expected to be open, but it's here now. As you all know, we had another property in mind, and we were actually under contract to close on that place. It was an interesting, historic property that needed some work, but we had a vision for it. And literally three nights before we were set to close, I'm up late at night scrolling through properties for sale and I see this one pop up – brand new on the market. I sat up in bed and couldn't believe what I was seeing, and then had this unbelievable anxiety, sensing we had to change course. I actually woke Janelle up and said, ‘Babe, you've got to see this.'”
Janelle laughed. “That's true!”
“So, we ran the numbers for eight bedrooms instead of six, looked at the marketing plan, maintenance costs, remodeling estimates, and other factors, and we decided that we had to go with this property. Getting it right, even if being late, for a business like this just seemed to be the right course of action. The best part, though, is that even though we are formally opening just now, we have hosted three preview events with event planners and influencers, and we have already secured six events for the summer, which gets us to our breakeven point. Four more events gets us to profitable, where we are back to the income levels we've walked away from. Eight more events and we start to generate some real cash flow for ourselves. So, yeah, it's all happening,”
The group offered a chorus of congratulations while Janelle turned and passed out postcards to share with any friends and colleagues looking for a small group retreat.
“And what I've learned? Patience,” Cedric continued. “Had we moved on the wrong property because it fit our timeline better, we would have missed the mark. So here we are.”
“And we all couldn't be happier for you,” Renault cut in. “I think we can all commit to trying to bring one group here at some point, don't you?” Renault checked the group for affirmation and found it. “And that would get you to at least six more events!”
“I'll go next,” Yisel chimed in. “Well, it's been crazy to say the least. I kept roasting and selling small batches for a whole year before I perfected what I thought was the right blend and the right brand. I landed a few boutique hotels, including Emerson House,” Yisel said, pausing to smile at Cedric. “And about six months ago, we met a woman, through one of our hotel clients, who was a sourcing consultant for the hotel industry. I had no idea that type of a job even existed, but we are now in a trial with a major hotel chain and have the potential to expand globally across their properties if it goes well. We are also talking to large food brands about scaling our operations and brand.”
“Awesome,” Alberto whispered to herself.
“So – I think what I've learned is you need partners to grow. I think when I started this whole thing, I assumed that I would be in charge of growing my company at each stage. And what I've learned is that if you get the right partner, you can go from zero to a hundred in a few months. But you need partners: for distribution, sourcing, and sales.”
“Partners – that's great…thanks, Yisel.” Renault nodded to Chad to go next.
Chad, ever the professional, gathered his thoughts and began. “I've learned that even though technically what I am doing is selling maps, it is as much about selling a certain lifestyle and belonging to a community. I've grown the brand and have stayed with a pop-up event format for how to distribute and sell the maps but have added an extensive online presence that is generating a lot of interest as well. What I didn't realize was how strong a community I have been building and how attractive that community is to other people: realtors, jewelers, other lifestyle experts selling luxury goods who are now coming to me asking to participate in my salon series. I'm exploring organizing a trip where we will go to Portugal and explore some of the history of map-making. It would be top dollar, but there seems to be a lot of interest in additional experiences like that. If you told me that I would not have a storefront, and maybe be planning a luxury vacation back when I started, I would have thought that was crazy, but today I'm profitable and growing, and I've been able to accomplish that without a lot of overhead.”
Kim gave Chad a high five. “Yeah, Chad!”
The group chuckled at Kim's always-available cheer as she got ready to go next.
“Well – next week will mark our one-year anniversary for Kim's House. And I still can't believe it's all come together. Thanks to the encouragement and the push from many of you here, I was able to really focus in on what I was doing to create a living environment for young women aging out of foster care. With the seed grant I secured, we fully purchased an old historic home that has seven bedrooms in the neighborhood. Not quite as fancy as this place, Cedric! But nice nonetheless…and we are fully occupied. So, some women just turning 18 are living there for $50 a month while other women who have stable employment are paying about $700 a month, but the rents cover the overhead for the organization. Everyone must contribute to the house in other ways as well. And we have built this beautiful, supportive community. Sunday night is open dinner – I usually make my famous chili – and we might get 20 to 30 of these extraordinary young women who have grown up through the foster care system and are now a part of this sisterhood. I was still doing my day job for the first several months to keep my income source, but two months ago I shifted to doing Kim's House full time. Y'all need to come check it out.”
“Kim, that is extraordinary.” Renault put an arm around Kim, who could not help but become emotional thinking about how dramatically her life, and the lives of the women she was impacting, had changed in the past two years as she constructed her dream into a reality.
“Kim, we never had any doubt you would do it and be successful,” Alberto piped up.
“And what I learned,” Kim continued, “stay focused and do the one thing really well. So, I just got really good at those chili dinners and focused on finding a house that could accommodate up to six other women to create a physical home for women coming out of the system. It took all of you reminding me to focus, focus, focus, but I did it.”
Kim gave Alberto an exuberant hug as she wiped away the tears that came flowing as she marked having achieved this goal for herself, and for the women she serves.
Renault turned to Alberto, “So, tell us: how is the business?”
“Well, like everyone else, it's been interesting, wonderful, and maybe not quite what I expected.” Alberto received approving nods from the group. “We ran The Apocalypse for about a year and got all this great press and people were really excited by it. Of course, it was a lot of work for my wife and me, but it was a labor of love. We were thinking about our next move – how to scale the concept – and got lots of interest from people wanting us to come create experiences for them as consultants. It turns out there are companies and other organizations, even towns, that want to host their own experiential events. We shifted the business to doing that. The money has been much bigger as a business-to-business offering, rather than just selling the individual tickets. And I get bigger budgets to design really cool things.” Alberto smiled as he appeared to mentally catalog the interesting opportunities he'd received.
“We just created this experience called Into the Future, where we envisioned what life on another planet could look like in 1,000 years and put it together for the leading tech conference in Silicon Valley that has over 20,000 people attend every year. It's sort of a must attend for people in technology and venture capital, and I had one guy who works with Disney ask me if I would be open to a partnership. So those conversations are taking place, and I don't know where they will lead, but in the meantime my wife and I are running our business full time, making good money, and have never had as much fun as we are now.”
The group mirrored the excitement and joy that Alberto expressed; his success was their success.
“And there is so much I've learned, but I think first, it's to listen to the opportunities that come to you. I never could have imagined that by running these experiences out of our garage we would ultimately be creating the experiences for other organizations or tech conferences, but those were the calls that came in so that's the direction we took.”
“That's exactly how this goes oftentimes, isn't it?” Renault reflected. “All we can do is step forward and do our best work, and showcase what we are capable of, and then the market comes to us with the opportunities. It's almost this faith we need to have, first the willingness to work hard to bring something to life, and then the faith that the market will respond and show us the way. That's great, Alberto.”
The group turned to Matt and Sabina. Sabina had held Ella's hand while she had patiently been listening to the stories which seemed unusual, especially for a two-year-old.
“Man, I'm inspired by you guys – pretty amazing,” Matt said. “Well, it's been a wild ride here for us as well. I met a wonderful guy along the way, Cory, whom I've mentioned, and he and I incubated and then launched our new firm to focus on clients with whom we share a passion for the outdoors. After some soul searching and watching us in action, I realized that he would be the better leader to run this business, and so while I'm a partner, I consider him the boss and the visionary to grow it and scale it. The organization is thriving, and honestly, all of the nagging I felt about needing to do something with my life has somewhat subsided. I've been hiking and camping more in the last two years than I have in the last 20 years, and that has been the greatest gift. The irony is that every time I head out, it's considered business development, in a sense, so I don't have any guilt about just being out there with friends and clients, talking about and doing the things I love most, which are beautiful national parks and conversations about finance. Saul, the owner of my old firm, continues to be a huge mentor of mine and advisor in the business. We gave him a small equity stake for all he has given us, mostly because we want his advice and involvement. Saul is a longtime believer in entrepreneurship,” Matt said, looking at Renault, knowing the deep value of the mentorship that both Renault and Saul, as well as the other Third Shift Entrepreneurs, had provided him.
“Now I'm thinking about what could be next, but the anxiety around all of that has shifted. There is no more anxiety, just curiosity. I honestly wake up every day just grateful to be amidst all of this possibility. I will say I'm starting to think about politics now too which has always been another passion. I have just started showing up to meetings that I'm interested in and using the strategies all over again. It turns out it works in that world too.”
Matt picked up Ella and put her on his hip. “But to be honest right now, I'm enjoying the most special of the new projects in my life – this two-year-old one right here.”
Renault, usually the steady presence in this group, became visibly emotional at Matt's last statement, and the group seemed to hold a moment of silence, as they each thought about the deeper things in life that brought them value and meaning.
“Oh, but I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge the newest entrepreneur in our family,” Matt said, perking up. “You see, after seeing all my crazy activity, Sabina started thinking about her own career. She had always been a successful therapist working for another practice with a number of loyal clients. The practice she worked for was more of a general practice, but her passion is kids, so…,” Matt looked at Sabina, “I helped her start her own practice specializing in child development and parent-child issues, and in short order it has really blown up as the go-to practice for those specific practice areas she focuses on. She took on three additional therapists, rented new office space, and started a podcast that gets a lot of recognition. Arguably, she's the real star in the family. But you all knew that.”
Matt leaned over Ella's head and kissed Sabina on the cheek. “I think maybe I've found my calling after all. I think I'm a better cheerleader and a strong number two for the real talents in the world. Maybe that's my calling.”
“Perhaps that is, Matt.” Renault smiled. “Perhaps that is.”