Interesting thing that is going on in the world right now. Especially here in Austin, Texas. We have found ourselves in a time and place where creating is everything. We have creators all over the place doing this and making things happen. When it is about passion and fire, you somehow find a way to make it work. When I started Gather and Forge, I was working at Odd Duck here in Austin and had a little over $2000.00 to my name. I literally went door to door to get my first clients and let me tell you... that was the most inefficient thing I have ever done! 

During this time, I spent all my money and I got very desperate so I walked from highrise to highrise downtown and offered my services for as cheap as I possibly could. It paid off, I cooked for 95 people on a budget of $500.00! Yes, that was with groceries and all. Taking this risk was one of the best things that I ever did, it also drew my bank account to $0.43 and I definitely thought it was over. I was excited to have had my first "dinner party" but in reality, I didn't do anything but give a giant company a free meal. 

It was my birthday 3 days after this and I woke up to a Squarespace submission. Holy shit, was this my first actual lead to my business? It sure was and it happened on my 26th birthday. I got nervous like I was meeting somebody famous or something. I took a deep breath and made my first appointment as soon as I could (mainly because I literally had no money and no job), I was meeting with my first potential client in 2 days. Lucky enough for me, my girlfriend was able to support me through this and also take me out to hang with my friends on my birthday at the greenbelt. 

I met with the potential clients and closed my first deal! This would end up getting me out of the "hole" and give me some real income that I could at least eat off of. Take this back to the days of walking around door to door all around Westlake, Terrytown, Clarksville, basically anywhere that was luxurious in Austin, Texas and I started to get leads. No joke, it started to work. After 1 month of 6-10 hour days of handing out flyers in the Texas summer of 2015, my hard work started to pay off. That snowballed and has continued to do so until today. We drive our own machine and we definitely can't count that on luck. My message to all of you is to work insanely hard and do what you love to do so that you can accomplish something that is greater than you! No way we would be where we are without doing that and trusting the work. 

You can't teach hustle and you definitely can't teach somebody how to work until they fall over but I will tell you one thing, if you do work that hard, you will find yourself in all of the places that you want to be. Nothing out there outweighs the grind and nothing out there will ever. It took me two and a half years to get here and honestly, I could have worked a lot harder. There are days, in all of our lives that might seem mundane but it is on us to realize that we are alive and well and to take full advantage of that. Thanks for reading guys! I am going to try to post weekly! Work hard! Do what you love! oh and get weird! 

I am going to be starting a YouTube channel with some restaurant friends here in Austin, Texas and we are going to be covering knife reviews. We are very excited to be going down the road that we are going!

Also! Please check out my new business venture! www.dairyfreefrenchtoast.com