Jan 7, 2022 | By Kismet

Business

How It Started, How It’s Going

How It Started, How It’s Going

Hi, guys! It’s here! We are here. We finally made it. We have finally launched our website and we are so excited to share Kismet with you. This blog is coming to you from the perspective – or fingertips? – of Jess, Kismet co-founder and COO. Where to start? Here we go…

What’s in a name? For my fearless co-leader, business partner, and CMO, Steph, the name was the easiest part. Have you ever met someone and you just know you were meant to meet them? Have you ever started a new job with no experience and you just know it’s something that you could do forever? Have you ever gone through an uncertain time and then found yourself somewhere surprising, yet you know you’re exactly where you are supposed to be? That, my friends, is kismet. And that is exactly our story.

We met in a former job and immediately hit it off. I was attracted to her creative, artistic brain and she enjoyed my candor and ability to get things done. We became both fast friends and an absolute power team in the workplace. Where I brought organization and proactivity, she brought unparalleled creativity and the uncanny ability to establish instant friendships with clients. If she couldn’t explain it, I had the words. If I couldn’t see it, she would create it. We joke that we are two sides of the same brain, but at this point, we finish each other’s sentences so maybe there’s some truth to that. However, while opposites in almost every way, there was one major thing she and I had in common that led us here today: we both wanted to own our own company and we wanted to help everyone regardless of their budget. And thus, Kismet was born.

We had our shot, and we took it. For two people who had always looked before leaping, boy, did we leap. Blindly. Exhilaratingly. Horrifyingly. And yet.

Steph and I never imagined that when we took that spontaneous leap and opened Kismet six months ago, that we would have so much business on our hands that we wouldn’t have time to work on our website. We found ourselves questioning the volume of people who wanted to work with us. We would have late-night conversations, riddled with imposter’s syndrome, chalking our success up to beginner’s luck. We had figured that we would gradually pick up business and would be able to focus and painstakingly craft our brand over a few weeks. No dice.

What we immediately realized we needed to focus on was scaling. For any semi-seasoned business owner, that’s a wonderful thing to be faced with. When your business is only six weeks old? Terrifying. You’re learning how to manage yourself, your business partner, and the new teeny, tiny baby of a company the two of you just made. But now we need people? People seemed too official. People made it real. We had no idea what we were doing or how real it was going to get.

It’s not a complaint, it’s really not. It was the best-case scenario for us and was such a wonderful surprise. But I don’t think we were truly ready for the all-consuming fire that would be Kismet. It is what we live, what we breathe, what we sleep. It dominates our every day and our every evening. It is the best thing that came out of 2021 for us and we get to do it together. Hey, we all have to believe in something and we believe in friendship, hard work, listening, and each other.

As we turn the corner and head into the second half of our first year of operation, we have come to understand – and accept – that we are a truly talented team. Our success up until this point can be attributed to one thing: listening. We listen to our clients and then we take our unique, individual strengths and work together to create something we can truly be proud of. The truly humbling thing is that our clients are proud of what we create too. And when things get bumpy? Well, we are used to that and we don’t let it stop us for a second Not even on the hard days.

So here we are. A team of 15 incredibly talented people who respect and value each other. We have grown our network to include several insanely kind and patient strategic partners who believe in us every day. We have over 80 clients – we can’t believe it either – who we get the continuous pleasure of helping reach their goals. We are so thankful for it all. Six months in and we finally launch the website? That’s okay. It’s Kismet.

Posts You Might Also Like