Entrepreneurial Advice from Entrepreneur and Co-Founder of Nectar Sunglasses, Sean Holmes

DC: From an entrepreneur's perspective, just looking to pick your mind on a piece of advice you would give somebody who's, you know, every it's kind of the time that everybody's going out and creating their own thing or doing their own thing. What is just a piece of advice you would offer someone who's looking to get started doing their own thing?

SH: Probably a lot, a lot of stuff. But I think there's a lotthat to the mentality of entrepreneurship. Obviously, it's not for everybody and just having the ability to take a moment before reacting and try to figure out how to turn that into an opportunity. I think a lot of people take things and it's the easy way is flipping that switch down to a negative mentality and saying, you know what, we're done, this isn't going to work. But there's always a way to figure things out or flip those into opportunities.

I think, as an entrepreneur, you need to have that ability to kind of steady the ship and not make these knee-jerk reactions, because we've had some crazy scenarios that have happened where, yes, I go into a couple of days of a slump, but I have to really dig myself back up and say, you know what? This is an opportunity. And it's made me reach out to people I never would have reached out to. It's made me go down avenues I never would have thought to go down and it always becomes something that makes you stronger and better and just learning to kind of roll with the punches because it's never going to be easy.

There are going to be factors that happen that are outside of your control and typically with myself when I rely on so many variables to get somebody a pair of glasses. You can only control what you can and knowing that from a customer standpoint, the other advice that I give is just like communication is so crucial that when I started the company, I worked at a restaurant part-time and would do orders during the day and it was just this never-ending thing. But you learn how people treat people and talk to different types of humans and just an example of why people send an email when their order is confirmed.

If I see somebody start doing this killer whale move at a table looking for a server, that's not good because they've been sitting there too long. If you literally just walked up and said, hey, I just got three tables at once, I'm going to get their drinks and I'll come right back and get you. They're going to be like this dude's, cool, we're good. But it's like that little gap in communication might be two minutes is really critical in setting the experience for the entire rest of their journey with your brand or product like that communication is so valuable.

DC: I don't know about you, one thing I do love about the entrepreneurship environment is whether it's good or bad, there's no day that's the same. You're always on your toes which I have an appreciation for, because I've been in environments in the corporate world and just other experiences where I'm like, I am bored out of my mind. But when I'm in spaces like this and working with clients, I'm like, I feel energized. I feel like the creation process and all of that, kind of keeps you energized. And like I said, whether it's a good or bad day, I'd rather have those days than just be bored out of my mind.

SH: Yeah, I love the fact that I just like finding solutions and navigating situations, and every day is different. Like you said, I'll come in for one goal and not get that done because ten other things came up, and that's just part of it. But I like to adapt and evolve and continue to try to find solutions for things to continue to get better. I think it goes back to playing baseball my entire life practicing one thing and knowing that these little tweaks make a big difference. And that's what it is.

At any point, if I had stopped swinging one summer, I'd lose my swing and you're behind again, so you can't stop working on your craft. And that's all this is, just continuous effort to refine and tweak and refine and tweak and keep getting better so it's never-ending.

Listen to more of Sean Holmes's story on the latest episode of?The Conversation Series Podcast.

Love, Dani