Launching my business

When I was younger, I never thought for a second about starting a business. My parents asked me what I wanted to do with my life and countless times I would tell them "I don't know." All I ever thought about was having a good time. I was also very laid back and kept to myself a lot. One day my father handed me a book that would change my thinking forever. That book was "Rich Dad Poor Dad." That book inspired me to want to be successful in my life and also changed my views of money.

So in 2003, I began selling things on Ebay. They were mostly just things around the house I no longer needed, but it was good for extra cash and gaining web experience as well. After a year or so, I figured I'd open a store within Ebay. Me and my wife would go to the flea market every Sunday looking for items to resell. Let's just say that that was not a good idea. I had no knowledge of the antique and collectible business and the things we thought would sell did not. So what now?

I closed that business and started another Ebay business. We attempted to sell dropship items. This time around I was making sales, but I had no experience with money management and the money I earned was all going to overhead expenses. I figured I needed a quick fix so I found an overseas supplier that would sell me a bundle of Ipods dirt cheap! This was too good to be true but I had to do it. Guess what? Never received one ipod. By this time, I was ready to give up. With these experiences and my freinds and family telling me it would never work, I closed eventually closed this store.

Telling myself I was finished with ecommerce, I began pursuing a modeling career. This looked very promising and was a great way to get quick cash! I had agents that where interested in me, but deep down this was not what I wanted. As I learned more about the industry and what was involved, I no longer wanted to pursue this venture. Besides, it was never a passion of mine. All I thought about was making easy money. Only thing that kept running through my mind was, what am I going to do with my life. There has to be something out there for me.

I collect comic book and movie related statues. I was looking at them one day and I thought, wouldn't it be cool to have a statue of someone you love or care about? Instead of having just movie stars and characters in your curio, what about people like you and me? I believe that people would love to have a 3d dimensional sculpt of a fond memory or loved one! Something they can pass down to family members. Do I dare pursue another online business after all of those failures?

With the motivation and support from my wife, a strong belief in the product and the continued desire to own a small business, I told myself I had to keep trying. I have learned from my mistakes and have done much research. Me and my wife sat down, weighed the pros and cons and ultimately decided to form "Face It Figures." Over the years I have learned that if your heart is not into what your doing, if your only motive is money, you will not succeed. We are fully commited to our store and have a different mindset now. I love our new store and believe that our products will make people happy. So here I am, back in again!   

Advice for others

Never give up. There will always be people that tell you that something cannot be done or your not good enough, but you cannot feed into that. If anything, use that as motivation to prove them wrong. There going to be problems and failures along the way, but you have to get back up and keep trying. You need to have a strong ambition or desire to be successful. And though it seems like you'll never get to where you want to be, you must press on. Learn from your mistakes and continue to grow. Eventually something great will happen. There are two types of people in this world. The person that spends their whole life dreaming, and the person that attempts to make that dream a reality!