Starting a New Venture in an Entrepreneurial Family

Listen to Angelo Esposito discuss the process by which he started a new business venture in an entrepreneurial family. In order to effectively gain support of the family, it is important to prove yourself, by creating a thorough vision and business plan for the new venture.

I would consider my family entrepreneurial. You know, my grandfather, like most Europeans came from Italy and started a business alongside with my father, so for me growing up in a household where my dad was always and entrepreneur, did have an impact. It was almost for me not a question, now not necessarily going into the same business as him, but that mentality of an entrepreneur definitely stuck with me and it’s something I knew I would be no matter what field I went into. I think that I’ve always wanted to make my family proud you know, and almost the pressure of not going into our family business but starting my own business, I really wanted to just prove to them, and to myself, that hey, I can make it, you know? So to me, yeah, I did feel that pressure, and especially when dealing with you know, parents, including not only my dad, but my mom who not, they don’t necessarily know exactly what I’m doing so sometimes they, they measure work by physical labour so when I’m working on a computer and doing a lot of tech stuff, they might not see that as something that’s hard work. My dad being an entrepreneur really supported me and I think the important part was that he supported me once I kind of proved myself, so it wasn’t like hey dad, can you help me out, and he just helped me out, it was really once I had my business plan and I started making sales, I started getting clubs on board, proving the concept, and then even though he’s not the most tech savvy person, not really familiar with computers, he was willing to help and it really shows, you know, he has the traits of an entrepreneur because he’s helping a fellow entrepreneur, his son, but more importantly, without even really understanding what I’m doing so I think that once I proved myself he was more willing to help.