Balancing Professionalism and Entrepreneurship with Agustina Sartori
Faces of Entrepreneurship interview with Agustina Sartori, Founder of Glam Street, a virtual makeup platform designed for brands and retailers.
Glam Street is a virtual makeup platform designed for brands and retailers. We customize solutions for each of our clients, retailer or brands so that anyone can try on make up virtually from a phone or a website.
What does the word entrepreneurship mean to you?
Entrepreneurship is following your dreams. It means focusing on overcoming obstacles. It’s about making mistakes, learning from them, and improving. One of the most important things about entrepreneurship is you need to choose to do it. Everyday. Sometimes you’re happy and sometimes you’re very upset. And when you ask, “why am I doing this?” it should be because it’s what you have always dreamed of doing.
You talked about being upset sometimes and being frustrated. In those moments what do you do? How do you face these challenges? How do you find inspiration?
Your support structure is very important, including advisors and other entrepreneurs that are going through the same thing.
To continue, I think you need to go back and remind yourself why you started. In my case, no matter what’s going on, the answer is always ‘yes’, I want to keep doing this. I’m happy to be doing this and I chose this.’ It is important to go back to the reason why and think of the bigger picture.
What’s the biggest learning from this journey thus far?
I am from Uruguay, South America and when I moved here 3 years ago to San Francisco, I realized that I was different. But it wasn’t that I was less smart or any less from anyone else. Since I didn’t study in a university here or work for a company here, there were a lot of obstacles.
After I’ve been here for a while, I realized it doesn’t matter where you came from. If you start the race from behind you can still catch up. Disadvantage can turn into an advantage.
You need to be aware of what you don’t know and what you’re good at. And what you don’t know you need to recognize it, and learn fast.
How has your background shaped your journey an an entrepreneur?
I think [being from Uruguay] has given me a lot of perspective because I’ve had go through a lot to get here. I always try to be aware of my mistakes and learn from others. If you don’t recognize you don’t have all then answers that then you’ll never grow as a professional and as an entrepreneur.
What does success mean to you? What does success look like for your business?
I think when you start your company, success means a different thing. Initially, you want to have a lot of clients, raise a certain amount of money, or make your company grow.
I’ve been doing this for 3 years and I’ve learned a lot and grown up as a person.
Success is related to happiness. Be happy doing what you’re doing. The reality is that, you can have an amazing company, and you can be growing, but if you go home and you’re not happy, then nothing makes sense. That’s not a real success.
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