A Collection Introduction | Work. I Hate Work | My First Pink Slip | The Proverbial Crossroads | The Grand Transition | Passion Personified
When you work for yourself you wear your passion on your sleeve. Long days feel like a blink of an eye. Success is expected, while criticism seems devastating and personal. This was me when I started MyBike. Everyday when I woke up, I could not wait to tackle a slew of projects that had tangible implications for my new business.
One of the lessons I learned when knocking on doors was to follow the money. If you have a house that said, “come back when my wife was home so she can pay you” was a smarter visit than to an unknown, never knocked on door. The things I prioritized involved things that could directly impact my bank account. The nature of the company at first was to rent bikes with advertising to college kids at Northeastern, so naturally I created ads that featured my company, put them in the triangular frames of bikes, and locked them around Northeastern. I knew the bikes worked when I got a call from Bob Preer at the Boston Globe. He saw a bike locked in front of the Marino Center on Huntington Avenue and wanted to feature MyBike in the paper.
That one article set off an avalanche of press that catapulted my company very far in a very short amount of time. I was working 18 plus hours a day 7 days a week to deal with the influx of work. It was exciting. At no point did all that time investment feel like work. If felt like I was playing a video game that kept getting better with each new level. I was making a few bucks, barely enough to cover my expense, but I was driven by satisfied customers. The money, to me, was simply a byproduct of their happiness.
When your work is your passion, you’ll never work a day in your life. I haven’t worked since I was 25.
LeRoy J. Watkins III 