Never Worked Harder, Never Been Happier

And today you are full time in that business and dedicated to IT for the long term. Also, today is your birthday. Happy Birthday. Gina Rosen thank you.

I'm tickled that we're doing this on your birthday. So let's begin with some background on you please.

I always thought that that was out of reach. I could never afford to do something like that. And so I tried to start my own businesses as a side hustle because I wanted the air quote stability of corporate job.

I say air quote because I suffered three layoffs in a 13 month period that really shook me early in my career and so I started side businesses. My most recent one was a jewelry business where I was wholesale buying jewelry wholesale and selling it on my E commerce website. And that's where I met Seasons Jewelry.

Gina let me pause you there just a little bit more in the background. So you, unlike a lot of people who think of corporate as the safer path, you learned early that in fact one decision can mean the end of a job. You were laid off three times in 13 months.

Did you say that's Right.

So you never took for granted that that corporate means stable. In fact, yeah, just the opposite. And one good framework that people will have heard me say about to think about this is that if you think of yourself as a single person business and you think of your corporate employer as your customer, that relationship, Your business has 100% customer concentration, a very precarious, fragile…

So in fact, not to say that business ownership doesn't come without its own huge set of risks, but in some ways, and usually people further along in their careers. Gene, it sounds like you realized this earlier, but in some ways it starts to feel safer actually to own your own business than to remain on a corporate track that you think is going to take you through to retirement. Anyway, my little…

Okay, so back to you. You start little businesses, e commerce side hustles to hedge this possibility that you knew could happen at any time in corporate life. And so you already had your own small jewelry business.

How big was that before Seasons? The subject of today's interview enters your life very small.

Very small. So it was almost negligible when it came to really sales and revenue. But what I gained from it was building websites, working with SEO, learning those foundational things that have served me now with Seasons Jewelry, learning what sells, how pricing works, social media.