How I Built This: Luck Or Hard Work? (I’m working on the uplifting music for the playout)

How I Built This

I am a huge fan of the How I Built This show on NPR, presented by Guy Raz. It is a series of interviews with founders of companies: they usually finish with “and then we sold for $300 million” and we’re played out to uplifting music. I love these stories, not because they end with a big payout – that’s the least interesting part for me – but it’s the ducking and diving, the tenacity in the face of adversity, the wry humour that I love so much. At the end of each show, Guy asks his guest “when you think of everything you’ve achieved, how much of your success do you put down to luck, and how much to your own intelligence and hard work?” It’s a terrific question, and I love trying to predict whether they’ll mention the same things I have noticed, like being supported financially and emotionally by their parents, attending a fancy business school, that kind of thing. They’ll often cite “being born American” as being a big part of it, and it’s a fair point.

Struggling To Build Something…

I had struggled to make any money as an artist all my life. There were good times, there were bad, but I could never make anything consistent happen. I sold my first paintings to a relative stranger when I was just fourteen, and hit a bit of a seam in my early twenties, but on the whole the gatekeepers shook their heads sadly but firmly when I tried to get permission to pass. The gatekeepers were publishers, art gallery owners, illustrators’ agencies, grant distributors, studio space administrators and authors’ agents. They all smiled gently and suggested I go away. This went on for twelve years, from the time my third child turned three and I had a few hours to string thoughts together each day. Still the “no’s” came in. I wept many tears of frustration. My husband asked me when I was going to accept that it was never going to happen. My best friend told me I just wanted to get paid for messing around. My mother told me that she and my father were so impressed that I kept going (subtext: despite not getting anywhere). All of these folk are beautiful people, have my back and care about me, but they were all sure that I was barking up the wrong tree. Many times I considered getting work in a field other than art, but that seemed not to make sense – not only am I good at art, it’s pretty much all I am good at. Or so I thought.

It turned out there was a whole other area I had a knack for.

Two Gatekeepers Say Yes, You Can Pass

In June 2019 my first book hit the shelves, because a publisher finally said yes (that’s a whole other story). It was my city’s number one bestseller that summer. In May 2020 I taught my first live class online, because my husband thought I should give it a try, given my not-inconsiderable following, which was not huge but definitely enthusiastic. It turned out to be a lot of fun, and I began to wonder how I could make it work on a more formal basis. I could see so many possibilities – recording classes, offering courses – but I had no idea how to implement any of it. All those years of sketching the highways and byways of Galway, combined with raising a family in the countryside, had left me with precisely zero “network”, least of all one that knew anything about business. Actually, that’s not true – my husband Marcel has a natural instinct and lots of expertise and experience, having run a number of businesses through the years. But we didn’t always agree about the way forward, and anyway I wanted to establish things “my” way. So I rang Galway LEO – that’s Local Enterprise Office – and I asked the wonderful woman who used to be at the top, Breda Fox, if she could help.

“As it happens,” said Breda, “we have just the programme for you. It’s called Lean Launch, and you’ll be in a group of 12 fellow founders with a mentor. It’s a course designed to test your business and see if it will work, before you’ve spent a fortune. It’ll all be online because of the pandemic. You’ll be perfect! Check back in September.”

That was lucky! I counted the weeks. I told my husband, my best friend and my parents that I was going to be on this great course. September rolled around and by sheer chance I stumbled across a link on Facebook that took me to a link advertising the course. My heart raced. I booked it. It cost €50. I got an email the following day from LEO saying that there had been a clerical error, the course was full, and they were very sorry. My heart hit the floor. Another dead end. Then – I don’t remember who said it – it was decided that since I had already paid, they would squeeze me in. Lucky number 13.

Welcome To Business 101

The first day came. I didn’t get a link to join, because of the messing with registration. I got in, was given out to by Declan for being late, tried to explain what had happened, got red in the face, and all in all had a poor start. Within six months the numbers were down to seven eager little faces turning up on Zoom once a week, so there was plenty of room at the inn. My ego was frequently bruised – there was always someone throwing around stories of financial wins, to Declan’s delight, and I wanted to be the one getting the praise of Teacher. But there’s no harm in facing your failures, because they’re there either way.

The Lean Launch course was exceptional. It taught me everything I needed to know about running a business, whether or not I was a little slow to implement things I learned.

Roll on four years. Yesterday I attended a kind of seminar in Galway City for Lean Launch alumni and other successful local business founders. I wasn’t asked to present to the group – Declan told me when i arrived that I had made it to the shortlist, but I wasn’t sorry not to have made the grade, because I don’t think I am anywhere near in a position to inspire on the business front, but there are a few things I really wanted to share with the group. I wasn’t asked to, so I am going to share a few things with you.

Pavarotti Only Sings – and other words of wisdom

First, here are a few things that were said to me by my business partners and guides, or other significant people in my life, that made a lasting impression on me, and affected decisions I made.

• Declan: “Pavarotti only sings.” He meant I should stop sewing the little bags I was making for sketching kit, and have them made. He tried to help me see my strong points, and emphasise using those in business.
• Marcel, when I said I wanted to write a memoir of our time in Mauritius, where I discovered urban sketching: “You’ll sell about three copies to your whinging women friends.” This made me laugh until tears rolled down my face, and I said I would put it on the back cover of the book. I will do this someday.
• Ronan, my amazing webmaster: “If you decide to give up, can you please just clone yourself first? Your numbers are brilliant.” I was having a discouraged moment, and I had rung him when i was on the Dart to Dublin. I can remember where I was when he said that: looking out over Dublin Bay, just like the scene in the sketch at the top of the page. It meant a lot.
• Declan, having watched one of my live broadcasts on Instagram: “You’re better than telly.” This made me more confident, which some might say was very clearly not necessary, but when it comes to a stage there is no such thing as overconfident.
• My brother: “You’re a better writer than artist.” While this isn’t the compliment it sounds, because my brother, I have found, is given to hyperbole, it meant a massive amount at the time, because he is a bibliovore the like of which is rare. I had sent him the draft of my memoir about my time in Mauritius, and I was on the phone to him, standing in the cereal aisle of the local convenience store. He said he had started reading at 11.00pm out of a sense of obligation, but hadn’t been able to tear himself away from his screen until well into the early hours (also not a ringing endorsement, as he is a nightowl). While that memoir has yet to be published – I don’t even know where the draft is – it was the first time I felt I might be able to write in an engaging way.

Well, Guy, now that you ask…

If Guy Raz were to ask me whether I have been lucky or clever (not that he’s going to, today, tomorrow or ever), this is what I would say:

“Well, Guy, I would say I am very lucky to have been born Irish. It is a great place to start a business, even if you aren’t connected with anyone. There’s a can-do attitude here and it’s very accepting. Then the chat with Breda Fox and the Lean Launch course came along at the right moment, and it was lucky that LEO’s tardiness in taking the course down got me a place. It was lucky that they let me join. I was lucky to have met Ronan, my webmaster, when so many others don’t have good experiences with their webmasters. He’s so much more than a webmaster – he’s my de facto business adviser too. Despite the pandemic being a catastrophe for millions, it was lucky for me from a business point of view, because it allowed me to build a client base online. I was lucky that I had a newly-built studio when I started teaching online, although I had worked very hard to save for that, not to mention the sheer amount of badgering, begging and bribery I had to offer my husband to actually renovate it for me (it had been a garden shed), so that might count as hard work. And of course, I had the great luck to have been born with an artistic talent, which I have been conscious from the very start not to have earned, and to have had a mother who injected art into my every waking hour since birth, through the wonderful works of Richard Scarry, Dr Suess and other incredible children’s book writers, then Hergé and Uderzo and Sempé and Posy Simmonds, and all the other astounding talents I have been so lucky to have held in my hands.”

But the really lucky bit –

And I have been lucky to meet all of you, my amazing, wonderful, kind, generous, and above all funny students who I am honoured to call my friends.

I’m working on the uplifting music for the playout.