I was living in Albuquerque, New Mexico when I started dreaming of owning my own boutique. Flash-forward almost 10 years later, and that was still a dream I had. The unfortunate part was that every headline I saw, was "Brick & Mortar is Dying" or "Company ___Filing for Bankruptcy". It seemed my dream of owning a store was never going to happen. I guess I would keep working in retail management. Boy was I wrong...
I moved to Austin, Texas in 2015 and after a few months in, I left retail and started my first non-retail big girl job- working at a local marketing agency. It has been fun and exciting and one heck of a learning experience. On my weekends off I would go to different craft fairs and pop-ups because the Austin community thrives on local business, and man was I itching to supporting local. One evening, I was a craft fair when I saw it...my first Fashion Truck. I could not get over the concept for weeks. I talked about it to my boyfriend and told him how I could do it, and I knew I could.
A year or so had passed, and nothing had come of my "grand idea." I kept seeing so many of my peers and old friends having kids, buying homes, getting married, and I felt I was just stuck. It was a horrible feeling, and I knew I had to do something for myself. After all, I had moved three times after college to find my way so I had better get started, right?! After a long and emotional evening, I decided I was going to follow my dreams of owning a boutique, but do it with a good ole fashioned Jessica twist. A Fashion Truck.
I started the hunt for the perfect stepvan. I researched all the websites and forums talking about the pro's and con's of every make and model out there. I was in over my head but felt motivated to find THE truck. I was looking in different states, and thinking I would drive it back to Texas if I could find one for the perfect price. When I say perfect, I mean something cheap because I was starting this venture on my own, and didn't have much money to my name. After 4 months of failed attempts to find the truck, I found one in San Antonio. I drove down there to test drive the beauty and... IT TURNED OFF WHILE I WAS DRIVING. I completely lost the brakes, the power steering, etc. It was a big blow to my heart, because I truly thought I would be leaving with a truck that day. I went back to Austin empty handed and feeling defeated.
That evening, I had another emotional day. I cried and cried and expressed my fears of never finding the truck to my boyfriend. He owns two businesses so he calmed me down and told me to keep on truck'n. The next morning, I decided to look on craigslist. Craigslist rarely had stepvans in my price range that even ran, but I figured why not. I typed in stepvan, and there it was. The perfect truck had only been listed for 21hrs in AUSTIN! But wait, there had to be something wrong with it because it was priced entirely too low. I decided to take a leap and ask to view the truck that evening. We drove across town and test drove the truck. My boyfriend looked at me and said with a huge smile, " This is your truck. You found a unicorn." I am not kidding when I tell you, I screamed like a little girl as we pulled back up to the owner. That was the day, I found my truck.
My truck has a wonderful past, but that blog is for another day...
Xx
Jessica