MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 1 | 81
Neil: Did you have any doubts that delayed
you starting your business?Dana Malstaff: Well I got pregnant. Not
necessarily a doubt, but I would call it a
little bit of something that totally throws a
wrench in things. In a sense that I had nev-
er had a baby and I never had a business
and I was in a scenario of trying to figure
out how to give birth to both. Which is just
a whole crap load of challenges, all in itself,
so I often wonder if my business would
have really become super successful be-
fore, but then this is what I love about rec-
ognising how the universe, you know bends
itself for you. Is that, we had my son, and I
was sort of, I had a business but it was kind
of you know, kind of working, I had some
clients, but you know nothing crazy. I was
trying to figure out exactly what my pur-
pose was and what I was doing, and I am
originally from San Diego, and we were liv-
ing in Columbus, Ohio. I had my son and we
would go and work at the coffee shop, and I
would see like a mom with her little kid and
then her mom, so like the grandma there,
and it just made me cry, like 'oh my gosh,
my family is out in San Diego and I am really
close to them.' So I told my husband, I want
to move back to San Diego, and of course
for him, we are like in the dead of winter in
Columbus, and he is like, 'I'll quit my job to-
morrow, I'm done and done' like that was
an easy sell. But we got here and it turns
out, it was the best thing we could have ev-er done because San Diego is a bustling
community of entrepreneurs, especially in
the online service industry. There's tons of
like all the really million people follower
people like Jon Lee Dumas who does
'Entrepreneur on Fire' I am now friends
with him, I am having lunch with Kate Erick-
son on Friday. You know I am going to his
book launch, I am friends with Hal. Like I
am getting introduced to all these people
that are really well known, in our industry
because of my proximity, because of me liv-
ing here. And so, it turned out that my busi-
ness was able to really significantly grow,
because we moved here. And we would not
have moved here if I had not had children,
so while I think of the challenges it was to
have a son and try and start a business at
the same time. I recognised that the uni-
verse presented itself in a way, that by hav-
ing a son, it prompted us to move in a place
where my business could really thrive. So, it
all kind of fit’s together.
Neil: What mistakes did you make that
slowed your journey?
Dana Malstaff: Well I make mistakes every
day. I continue to make mistakes every day.
I like to think that mistakes don't slow my
journey. Of course, we would all love it if
we could make a mistake, move past it and
have some epiphany, I think ultimately, a lot
of our mistakes are a series of mistakes that
build up to the success. But I do think that
there are two big mistakes, I think that I