Association of Female Executives of Trinidad and Tobago

In many ways, starting my own internet business was like a journey to myself.

I say this because I have always been creative. A favourite memory of mine was when my kindergarten teacher told my parents I was an art prodigy. But somewhere during university and my early days of corporate life, the creative juices seeped out of me. The scary thing was, that I never realised it…

How could I? I was caught up in the rat race of working, making money and liming. For years, I worked in the typical professional level, corporate jobs that were expected of a twenty-something, university graduate. Although I was doing well at these jobs, there was always the feeling that I wasn’t in my element. My jobs felt like ill-fitting, pin-striped suits.

It’s hard to figure out that feeling, unless you’ve experienced a baptism of frustration, followed by serious introspection. But from this frustration, comes a wonderful realisation that you can find job satisfaction in the most unusual place…yourself.

However, it takes more than a head of dreams to set you down the road of entrepreneurship. It takes a mish-mash of unbridled determination, a thick skin, calculated risks, sound business theory and application and a pint of crazy optimism. Internet entrepreneurship, in particular, also requires you to have more than an iota of blind faith, because you’re building a virtual world - growing something you cannot touch.

My idea was to start the first wedding website in T&T. I first did a budget and then accumulated a pool of “start-up” funds that I would use to grow my business. Then, I immersed myself in researching anything I could find out about weddings. I also became engulfed in books on starting internet businesses. I hired a consultant to do market research. I leveraged my experience in HR, marketing and sales and I literally “hit the road” - scouting bridal fairs to make contacts with wedding suppliers, speaking with random engaged couples and networking with friends and colleagues in accounting, advertising, communications and IT.

I became, in short, a wedding maniac.

Then, the day arrived when I left my regular job. This is when the phase of fear crept in. It’s the phase that keeps many entrepreneurs in the quagmire, but it’s all in the mind. I worried about failure everyday. I worried about potential competitors. I worried about people not thinking I had a legitimate job. But the important thing was, that I stopped worrying about myself. The creative juices had started trickling in again and I was energised once more.

I often exhale and sit back in my office chair now and wonder, how did my business get to be nearly a year old? It’s incredulous to me that I was able to give birth to www.trinidadweddings.com in June 2004 but I’m proud to say that we’re the first online resource for engaged and newly-wed couples in Trinidad and Tobago, with over 47 advertised suppliers and growing. Nothing can beat that feeling of exhilaration when someone tells me they know about Trinidad Weddings and how much it has helped them. That is worth much more to me than that monthly pay check from a bygone corporate era.

People say I’ve bloomed at my new job - that I look so relaxed. The first comment is true but the last one is a deception. As many entrepreneurs would attest, having your own business is like an obsession. You think it, breath it, motivate it, grieve over it and nurture it as though it were a child. But it’s worth it in the end, not just because it’s your livelihood, but because it’s truly yours.

Simone Sant-Ghuran, March 2005