Member-only story
A Startup Story
Starlin Handmade Shoes
My father was a proud man. And a craftsman. A cobbler by trade, he was an expert at repairing shoes. He toiled in an era when things were finely crafted and meant to last. People didn’t throw things away and buy new. That was considered wasteful. Instead, they repaired things.
My father didn’t just mend shoes, he made them better than they were initially. Eventually, he started crafting his own brand of shoes. They were more works of art than shoes. Unfortunately, his uncompromising dedication to quality meant that the shoes were expensive. Only doctors, lawyers, and the wealthy could afford them. Still, they sold. Frank Sinatra was a regular customer. As was Cary Grant.
I grew up watching him in his workshop. Like any proud father might, he started apprenticing me in the trade of shoemaking. I seemed to have a knack for it, but as the years went by, and I reach my late teenage years, I knew I didn’t love shoemaking enough to make it my life. I wanted to express my creativity in other ways. Music and art and writing.
Three decades later, I learned the hard truth that desire and talent are not always enough. I was an unknown musician, unknown artist, and unknown writer. I had to make a choice. Continue down the road of artistic disappointment and hunger, or get a “real” job and eat regularly. I chose…
