CAT HARVEY / ENTREPRENEURIAL LIVE INTERVIEWS WITH CONNIE FUKSA (2021)
Cat Harvey’s entrepreneurial career started back in 1984 when she started a service business. She worked in that business for 15 years and what killed her was her failure to recognize future trends. This is something that she really tries to keep tabs on now. She had a tag and title service which is nothing like the tag and title service today.
In 1984, she was an early technology adopter so she had a computer that she used in her business but the MBA was behind because they had very few computers. What she did basically was she worked as a liaison between car dealers and the MBA in DC and Virginia. They would go to the dealership, pick up the paperwork, and plead anything that was necessary and then take it out to the various jurisdictions and get it processed, bring the tags back to the dealership and the dealership would send you a card.
Even though Cat was an early technology adopter, she really didn’t see computers taking over her job. That dealership would have computers and be able to do that themselves. She had not taken the time to develop a counter business. She only had her car dealerships and car dealerships only wanted you to do the work that was too expensive for them to do on their own, but they didn’t want to pay anymore.
She learned the important lesson of future trends. Her next business was she did a little bit of selling computers at Circuit City in the 90s when people didn’t have computers so that was kind of interesting too but when she married her husband, she started a craft business. It was a retail business where they were selling crafts and collectible teddy bears. Cat really loved it but after a while, she was really successful. She sold on eBay and she had a store on eBay and she was a vendor and a chain of stores up and down the East Coast.
After a while, her inventory needs outpaced her capital. Shortly after that, Boyd’s Bears went out of business and she didn’t see that coming but that would have been you know that would have been the death knell if she had decided to close shop earlier than that. She did that for ten years.
Then she did a 12-year stint in corporate America. She just said,” You know, I’m tired of this entrepreneurial thing. I’m wearing all the hats all the time. I think I’d like to just go where I can do my job and then come home.” When her job finally ended, she had already she already had a couple clients but she was working very part-time and then her job ended and she wanted it to end because she wanted to pursue writing full-time but when you don’t give notice and they come for you, it’s always disheartening.
Cat never wants to give anybody that power over her again and that’s the main reason why she’s an entrepreneur. She wants to rise or fall by her own actions. She doesn’t want to be somebody else’s choice, whether or not I’m gainfully employed
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This looks great!