A Little Bit About Me…..
I am the product of the marriage of finance and entrepreneurship. Let me explain: My father is a financier who buys, fixes, and sells companies, and my mom is a Wharton MBA grad who went on to create and build a high-end cosmetics company. Business goes back a long way in the family tree; on my mother’s side, to one of the first Westinghouse appliances and parts dealerships in Iraq, and on my father’s side, to a small hardware store and family farm in rural Texas and Oklahoma.
When I was 5 years old, I remember my dad on intense conference calls where his business was on the line. Was I intimidated? Not in the least; quite the opposite. I felt energized by his entrepreneurial mind, creative intellect, and risk-taking skills. On the road with my dad during business trips, I learned about the model he created for his private equity firm, more entranced by his deal-making than the prospect of staying home and watching TV like my peers.
As a child, I was also passionate about my mom’s business. While my dad’s business was all about deals, strategy, negotiations, and spreadsheets, my mom’s was all about vision and operations. As the founder of Circcell, she likes to say she enjoys getting her hands dirty. She has spent much of her time on customer service, dealing with lost orders, and shipping packages. I would fill cosmetics bottles, test samples, and go through potential social media posts with her until bedtime.
While still in elementary school, I became fascinated by my mom’s closet and the contradiction it presented to me. The treasures inside the closet felt incongruous to the back country world outside of it. My mom was a big city transplant to small mountain town life, and she traveled a lot. Most of the people I saw every day wore practical mountain garb and sensible footwear. My mom essentially lived in yoga clothes. But when I walked into her big walk-in closet, I entered a world that contrasted our rural, outdoor living. This closet contained what was left of my mom’s former big city life - beautiful structured garments, some embellished and others whose perfect simplicity felt breathtaking. Ribbon, sequins, lace, silk, leather, denim….each individual piece enthralled me and took me to places in my imagination that somehow felt familiar but where I had never been - fancy parties, business meetings, weddings, each garment expressed its own purpose.
Her shoe collection was housed in a shelving construct that resembled a candy store selection with its display of color and variety. The handbags captivated me especially - beauty and artistry… why did my mom have this museum in a town made of sunshine, grass, snow and mud? Mostly, she would pack these jewels in her suitcase when she went off on her travels. Every now and then, she would dress up in Jackson Hole for the occasional special event or fundraiser. I was mesmerized as I watched her get dressed and leave the house off to somewhere magical, leaving behind the scent of cosmetics, fabric and perfume. I knew this had to be my life. I wanted to know, create and possess these works of art. My love for fashion began in that closet in Jackson Hole, and with it, the spark of wanting to build something in this beautiful world.
In the sixth grade, I was thrilled to start something of my own. The first venture, under an umbrella I called “Sydney Crothers Holdings,” was “Sydney Does Slime.” To wit: I sold slime in various colors and textures to my middle school classmates and eventually the elementary schoolers, too. I launched new SKUs weekly to a customer base hungry for the newest slime creations. I moved so much slime that my parents became alarmed by the gallons of glue that arrived in the mail every week. (Elmer’s glue is a key ingredient.) My biggest setback was a product recall; the hands of users got stained. Lesson learned. Test your products prior to selling them when you introduce a new ingredient! Snafus aside, the business venture was highly profitable.
By high school, wanting to learn more about business and design, I took summer camps on Economics, Advertising and Design, the Future of the Business and Quantitative Modeling. I combined business learnings with analytics with design. It all felt right and I know I was on the right track.
When I entered business school, where I am currently a freshman, I launched my next entrepreneurial venture, creating a website called Sydney Crothers Holdings: Niche Insights; the idea is to record interviews with leaders in the luxury goods segment, so that I, and others can learn from the experiences of the experts. Now, when I walk the teeming streets of lower Manhattan, a long way away from a closet in a small mountain town, I’m mesmerized by the infinite possibilities of cutting-edge fashion and industry. Here I am, finally, in the big city able to pursue my dreams.