My Entrepreneurship Story: Assignment 3A

In 2012 I decided to start my own nonprofit. I had been sitting on the idea for nearly four years and decided to stop talking about it and take action. It was extremely exciting, but also included a very steep learning curve. Other organizations had educational components, but my goal was to create something that solely focused on the educational aspect of shark science and conservation. I wanted to make the content free and easily accessible for students and teachers. I also wanted to offer lessons delivered by our team as well as hands on outreach opportunities to add another level of engagement and immersion.  I felt like there was a niche and knew I was capable of filling it. I combined my passion for shark conservation with my knowledge and experience of working with sharks, but really had no business background. I recruited two other people to be board members, both who had extensive experience working with sharks. I recruited a third board member who had successfully built multiple businesses, but also loved the ocean and sharks. We spent one year building the website, creating curriculum, getting registered as a business and a 501 (c ) 3 and off we went. November 7, 2013 Shark4Kids was born.

It’s been an amazing journey thus far and I am constantly learning that a nonprofit is anything but just a nonprofit. It is a small business and it took some time for me to wrap my head around this concept. Tax exempt status, finding an accountant, creating spreadsheets and registering as a business had never crossed my mind. I am also not a formally trained teacher, so learning about curriculum development has been a significant challenge as well. The rewards however, have been beyond anything I imagined. We’ve connected with over 75,000 students in over 50 countries, both in person and virtually. In April I visited 13 schools in Singapore, which was incredibly special. Singapore ranks third on the shark fin trade market ( an estimated 73 million sharks killed each year for their fins), so education is critical. It was surreal being asked to travel across the world to share my passion with people.

Sharks4Kids: Shark Education around the world

During the journey I decided to write and publish a children’s book ( Norman the Nurse Shark). I felt like we had built a large enough audience, so I did a Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds and actually received nearly double of what I had asked for. 2 years later we’ve donated nearly 300 books to kids around the world and have sold nearly 1500 copies. I will be publishing my second book next year and will definitely do things differently. I learned a tremendous amount and doing every aspect of the book in house ( my husband did the layout, 4 friends did the edits and another friend did the illustrations) was an incredible accomplishment.

Taking Norman to meet a real life nurse shark. Image Credit: Denny Proctor

I have learned far more than anticipated, but one of the biggest lessons has been to ask for help ( see all those involved in the book above). There are amazing people out there with the skill sets I lack. Rather than spending all my time learning a new skill, I have reached out to people and asked for help. As a small business owner I have had to learn some things because we could not afford to pay for the service (i.e building a website), but I have also connected with some really incredible people. When you share a passion, its remarkable how much you can achieve when working together.

I have also had to learn how to say, “no.” I want to do it all and grab every single opportunity, but there just isn’t enough time in the day. I usually work 50-60 hours a week and still feel like I could do more and want to do more. Life is about balance and I've found it difficult to find at times. It’s not just about saying no, but also accepting the reason why you have to say it. I found myself getting spread thin and didn’t feel like I was doing anything to the best of my ability. I took a step back and assessed what was critical in order to create a new and more manageable course of action.  Just because I have to turn something down now does not mean it will always be the case.

I am enrolled in this class because I jumped in head first and now I want to see where I can take this business. At times it’s been scary and has seemed impossible, but I won’t quit. I am an entrepreneur (blood, sweat, tears and all). November will mark our 5 year anniversary and I believe this class will give me some extra tools for taking my passion and vision to the next level. I want to expand from online to a physical entity. I really want to learn more about growth and expanding our audience. How can I create more value? How can I find and create more efficient and manageable opportunities? I think getting feedback from my peers will also be valuable in this process. I feel like I am in stage 2, 3 and 4 concurrently. I have developed a concept, but am continuously expanding on it. I have acquired resources, but am always looking for more as a way of expanding the concept. I am also at the stage of managing and growing, which is really where I think this class is going to be an asset.