5 Reflections On 2014

Well it’s official, 2014 is behind us and I now get the joy of writing the date wrong for the first month while I adapt to the fact that it’s 2015. Last year was without a doubt one of the most incredible years of our lives and as many of you know I tend to get quite reflective around this time so I thought now would be a good time to share those reflections with all of you.

In an effort to keep things simple I’m going to stick with five, so here we go!

  • 2014 is the year that we became job creators – I think the highlight of 2014 was hiring our first three full-time employees at Fashion Metric. This was significantly more challenging than I had expected and we learned a lot from the process. Hiring contractors is very different from hiring full time employees and it took a lot of phone and in-person interviews to get the team we have today. I’m also incredibly proud to now be job creators and it’s still weird to think of people saying “I work at Fashion Metric” when people ask them what they do for a living. The hiring isn’t coming to an end as we are continuing to hire in 2015, you can see the positions we have available here.
  • Leaving Los Angeles – 2014 is also the year we left our home of six years in Los Angeles and moved to Austin, Texas. I never thought in a million years that I would be living in Texas but Austin really is something special. You can read more about our decision to move our startup to Austin in this post.
  • Losing our incredible cat Samsie – this is the first time I’ve shared this publicly but I do plan on doing a post dedicated to Samsie. 2014 is the year that we lost our amazing cat Samsie. We got Samsie a few months after Daina and I met and for those of you who met him I think you know he was no ordinary cat. Samsie was a part of the family and his death was and still is incredibly impactful on us. I don’t think you ever get over death, I think you learn to live with it but I can say with confidence that life is not and will not be the same without him.
  • Meeting my niece(s) for the first time – Daina and I became an Aunt and Uncle and met both of our nieces in 2014. My sister and her husband had their daughter Heidi at the end of 2013 and Daina’s brother and his wife had their daughter, Skylar in June of 2014. There’s something absolutely magical about seeing your niece for the first time, I’ll never forget those moments and can’t wait to watch them both grow into amazing people.
  • Making new friends – last but not least we made some amazing new friends here in Austin. Many of them are startup founders like ourselves and it has been great to go through many similar experiences together. While publications often glorify startup life, for those who are in it you know that there are ups and downs and often you are swimming in unfamiliar territory. Austin has an incredibly rich and vibrant startup community and I feel so lucky to have met some amazing people that without a doubt will become lifelong friends.

As always I’d love to hear from you, feel free to share your reflections on 2014 below!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton