Jumping into your business whole heartedly..

There came a time where I couldn't work my tourism role (which was 9-5 weekdays, some weekend and often time away travelling) and work in the jewellery business too. 

It was funny because, it was my boss at the time who noticed it before I did... He said to me "Danika, I know you love the Cook Islands, but your real passion is your jewellery". 

He was absolutely correct and it was a relief from then on that I was able to speak to him openly about the business and my goals as an entrepreneur. 

I dropped down to 4 days a week in my tourism role, which allowed me one full day a week to attend Peter Minturn Goldsmithing School. This was a turning point for me as it allowed me to really hone in on learning and upskilling. 

It was then about 6 months later, that I made the break and resigned. At first it was super scary, I went back and forth thinking if I should or shouldn't for over a month. Then one day I messaged my boss and said "we need to talk". He knew exactly what was happening and to make it easier, I was actually kept contracted to a few hours a week to be able to work from home! Talk about an amazing boss right! I am forever grateful for his support throughout this part of our business journey. 

Tumua was still working his 9-5 in finance and we couldnt see a way for him to leave until we were able to building the business up to cover both of our expenses and then some. 

This was a longggg hard yards. I would work day and night, and Tumua in the evenings too after his days at the bank. It was hard, it was tiring, we weren't earning anything for the long hours and I constantly thought about 'if it was going to be worth it'. I'm lucky Tumua was MR POSITIVE and he would always kick me back into reality and see that this was the exact time most people give up! Not us though!

We ploughed through, we saw the light at the end of the tunnel and we loved what we were doing. 

We planned pop up events, media coverage and got hold of as much info as we could from people around us about running a business. 

Be sure to read more of our next blog about the sacrifices we made to start a business.