I think of all of us as parents are trying to figure out how to keep our kids entertained and connected to friends during this pandemic. I was happy (but a little nervous) when my kids were invited to a neighbor’s birthday party. The party was outside, with only a few kids invited, and our town has been fortunate to have few cases of Covid at the moment. So, off my kids went for two hours of fun with friends.
Fast forward an hour into the party and the host called to tell me that my daughter had a bounce house accident, where a bunch of kids fell on top of her and her glasses broke. I held my tongue when I saw my daughter - she knows not to wear glasses on a bounce house, but honestly, I wasn’t concerned about a pair of broken glasses.
Before I started a glasses company, this would have derailed our day and weekend. We would have been hunting for a missing screw, trying to find a replacement on the weekend and negotiating rush delivery.
Our daughter, Olivia, would have caused a DEFCON 1 situation at our house - often the glasses were irreplaceable as companies usually discontinue frame designs and colors and the back up pairs we had on hand never felt the same as the ones she wore day to day. Not to mention, the emotional toll she experienced every time she had to part with glasses that were not only her lifeline to seeing the world, but the way she saw herself - as these glasses were part of her identity.
Instead, she took off the broken pair and popped her old temples onto her back-up pair that fit the exact same way - and she went about her day. Crisis averted.
Start-ups are full of emotional ups and downs, but seeing the product you’ve built work the ways you intended it too, is definitely validation and a reminder that what we are doing at Fitz matters for our customers (including me and my family).
Here’s to less broken glasses in the future, but also happy kids who get to be kids.
With gratitude,