So resonant this article, though my arc is a bit longer…the hard learned lessons coming only in the last 7 years or so…and I am now 44. The hardest thing has been to have to ignore the fact that deep inside you wonder if your family thinks you’ve lost your mind in trying to be an entrepreneur instead of just working like a normal person.

Though my father was a one time entrepreneur (he owned his own dry cleaning shop less than 10 years after emigrating to the US from Haiti with in 1968) it was a different kind of hands on/visceral work…to the old School work you can see is work you can quantify value for…this coding stuff I do is foreign to every one in my family (I’m the only Engineer out of 8 kids). Then there is the being a PoC in tech thing….another universe of doubts, expectations, assumptions and glass ceilings to navigate that is invisible to most every one else.

Learning to overcome my intense stereotype threats and take risks that others don’t even see because they are so confident…has been the biggest win of my experiences over the last 7 years. The road continues….