How I lost an organ and found(ed) a startup

A gallbladder removal surgery is a fairly simple procedure.

It is a commonly performed surgery, minimally invasive, with a very low complication rate. A year ago, I experienced this first hand as I had my own gallbladder removed.

For me, there were minor physical complications to the surgery, but this is not a story about that. The bigger complications I experienced were connected to my mental health, my aspirations and my ambitions.

This is a story about what came after the surgery and how it changed my life. You see, becoming aware of my health made me analyse my life in a much more big picture kind of way, and what I actually wanted to do with it.

At the time I was in a full time job, which though unfulfilling, was paying the bills. There was a part of me that was searching for something and at the time, I had no idea what that was.

I wasn’t looking for a business idea, and so the story of how I ended up launching my business is almost clumsy.

So here is the story — when I was recovering after surgery, my friends were sending me care packages. These packages contained things to occupy my time and cheer me up, things like sweets and chocolates, magazines and flowers.

They always brightened my day, but if truth be told, they weren’t exactly useful presents; most things I couldn’t eat, and well, flowers die. Asides that, people were spending time, money and effort sending them.

And so, I did some research and spotted a gap in the market — for thoughtful, useful & affordable gifts for patients. It occurred to me then that I could make something of this opportunity if I wanted to.

The complication I faced was: do I want to set up a business? Do I want to be an entrepreneur? Do I want to take that risk? With rent to pay, and very little understanding of what I would actually do, it wasn’t an easy or clear cut choice for me.

I decided that I wanted to at least try though; and that is how my company, Care Package Co was born — we create tailor made care packages for those recovering from surgery or experiencing an illness.

Care Package Co was a little idea, a seed that I planted, that is now growing. Over the last year, I’ve made many mistakes but also learned so much about myself and entrepreneurship.

I didn’t used to think of myself as an entrepreneur, perhaps because so much of what I associated with entrepreneurship was sleek and sexy — from motivational quotes, to stories of 19 year old tech wizards, and tales of startups raising millions.

I have learned though that entrepreneurship can be unsexy. It can be a bedroom full of cardboard boxes, emails on trains, bootstrapping and budgeting, hacking and hustling. And that is ok, because we are all, at times, wonderfully unsexy too.

So now we come to the point of this publication. I’ll be using this space to share the things I’ve been learning and thinking about that aren’t all that sexy. There will be no inspirational quotes here, no flat lays of coffee, and no artsy shot snaps of Moleskines.

There will be be honesty, practical tips, mistakes made and lessons learned. There will be the embracing of entrepreneurship, in all it’s chaotic, colourful and unsexy glory.

I hope you’ll join me.