Zak Parker
After college I worked for several years in manufacturing as an Industrial Engineer, doing what I loved the most – making things that people wanted to have and enjoy. Having been involved in doing startups for numerous others, I still wasn’t sure that I could do it myself and was admittedly thoroughly fearful of making the leap from getting a paycheck from someone else to becoming completely self-sufficient.
I looked at this as analogous to jumping off a cliff with a parachute, pretty much a one-way trip, not being sure of when, where and how I would land. I spent a year visiting other startups in my specific area of interest, getting to know others that had done what I wanted to do (both successful and not), I took a couple of industry offered classes, read voraciously, spoke with countless potential future customers and retailers, created my roadmap (a business plan), took that leap, and have never looked back. This path is not for the faint of heart, it’s a long and frightening one, but in the end well worth everything that went into it.
Contributors: Paul Allen from Hope Springs Distillery
