As most entrepreneurs can attest, the journey to success is not linear. It's a path where failures sometimes teach greater lessons than wins, one where failing forward might just offer the key to prosperity.
Motivo Scar Care founder and CEO Jadis Montijo learned first-hand how to be a better businessman from his mistakes in his first venture, The Kind Pen. Though he and his team saw much success at the company, overspending in his personal life and a failed acquisition experience taught Montijo the skills he needed to turn his dream project, Motivo Scar Care, into a thriving business.
"There's no industry crossover between what I did and what I'm doing now. But a lot of the failures that I had at my time during Kind Pen molded me and shaped me into who I am and made me more prepared for Motivo," he explained to Living Not So Fabulously hosts David & John Auten-Schneider. "A lot of startups fail. Even just trying to raise capital as an LGBTQ founder, less than 1% of VC dollars go to LGBTQ founders, right? Yet we create more successful businesses."
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Montijo's best advice for entrepreneurs facing the endless, uphill, and oftentimes not-fun battle—as Montijo explained frankly—of starting a small business: be yourself. "If I didn't take the time to step back and authentically go through my transition to become myself, Motivo wouldn't be a thing. Maybe it would be a thing that someone else created. But taking the time to be myself and learn myself—it really put me on my path."
Hosts and husbands of Living Not So Fabulously, David & John Auten-Schneider, dive into real money stories with activists, allies, artists, tech-gurus, and trailblazers in the LGBTQ+ community to give you tangible takeaways to tackle your wallet woes.
For full episodes of Living Not So Fabulously, listen on your favorite podcast platform or watch on our website.
Yahoo Finance's Living Not So Fabulously is created and produced by Rachael Lewis-Krisky.