“Someone tried to kidnap me” – A founder interview about starting over
"Someone tried to kidnap me for a ransom about ten years ago. The police stopped it right in time. About a year after that, six armed men came into my house. They couldn't get to where me and my family were, but they stole a lot. It was terrifying. That's when I decided to leave Venezuela — the government corruption was making people become criminals and it was getting too dangerous. I knew I'd be leaving my business behind, which was hard. I'd built it from scratch with a friend over 10 years. We started out delivering fish from the coast to friends and family, and it grew into a huge store. It was a really difficult decision to leave it. And it was also simple because I wanted my family to be safe. Six months later, we landed in Australia. I had nothing but an idea. I was in a new country. I was a nobody there. I started working as a dishwasher. On the weekends, my wife and I would walk the streets with a backpack full of shoes that we imported, leaving business cards at stores. A year later, we were selling $80k a year. We were very ambitious and we didn't have a choice — we had to be successful. Our revenue tripled the next year. And then that doubled. The business was really doing well but my wife wasn't happy being so far away from her family. When we decided to move to Miami, I tried to automate everything instead of hiring help. That was a huge mistake. It cost me the business. I couldn't handle it all from the other side of the world and I had to sell it. Now, I have a digital marketing agency, using all the experience that I got from my first two businesses. There's a lot of competition and I really struggled at first but it's growing day by day. I'm pretty happy with our new life. It was very hard to leave everything I built and start from scratch in a new market, in a new world — twice. But you have to overcome it. You have to work around the barriers. You have to believe in yourself. And you have to be clear on what you want. If you have a reason to go forward, you'll get there. It's not easy. But it's in your hands."