I’m a 58-year-old man, and for the first time in my life, I’m unemployed and scared to death. My story is about the difficult decision to leave a business that I’ve known my entire life. It’s about family, and the challenges of starting over when many people my age are thinking about retirement. I recently separated from my family business that I co-founded with my two brothers over 23 years ago. (I still retain ownership.) I am now embarking on a new journey to find my next work-life chapter.

I’ve had one job for my entire adult life. At 20, I joined my father’s Minneapolis-based screen print company, initially in sales and later in sales management and product development. For 15 years, I worked alongside my dad, who is my greatest mentor and champion.

When my father expressed his desire to retire, he offered to sell the business to me and my two brothers. The prospect of owning a screen print factory did not appeal to us. Our forte was in sales and product development, not running a factory. So my father sold the screen print operation to our production manager, while my brothers and I purchased some inventory, art, and the customer list.

In November 2000, after countless late-night planning sessions and numerous meetings with accounting firms and banks, my identical twin brother, Scott, younger sibling, Ben, and I embarked on an ambitious venture. Armed with home equity loans, a receptionist, an artist, and a production coordinator, we founded Creative Apparel Concepts Inc. Our vision was to revolutionize the apparel industry by creating captivating products and brands for retailers while outsourcing our production both domestically and overseas. What started as a team of six grew to over 70.

Throughout the years, we partnered with Target, Walmart, Disney, Amazon, and others. In 2017, we were honored with the prestigious EY Entrepreneur Of The Year regional award, validating the hard work that has driven our success. We were on cloud nine.

So why would I choose to step away? Well, with the roller coaster highs and lows of owning and running a business, a pandemic, and struggles with differing views on the company’s direction, I realized I was not happy working in my business anymore, and it was affecting my well-being. I needed a change. I reached out to friends and family and opened up about my predicament. With their encouragement, I made the decision in January I never thought I would ever make: to leave the day-to-day operations of the company I helped build.

The first month after this life-altering decision was stressful. I battled depression and fear. I had never been without a regular paycheck or medical insurance. The cash clock started ticking, and I calculated that my family could squeak by until the end of the year. Fortunately, I had the unwavering support of my wife, who left her part-time work at Creative Apparel Concepts to take a full-time job with benefits, plus a part-time job for more income. It was total role reversal in our marriage. I started cooking meals, shopping and cleaning.

In my first weeks as a stay-at-home husband, I announced on LinkedIn that I’d left my company. I started networking with business contacts, applying to jobs, reading a ton of articles and just feeling my way around, hoping something would jump out at me. 

Then one morning, I stumbled on an article about artificial intelligence and how it’s going to change the world. I started playing with the platform DALL-E to generate text-to-image AI art, and my entrepreneurial radar started to twitch. What could I do with AI? I have 30 years of apparel experience that runs through my veins, but tech? Nada. Nothing. I have trouble plugging in my computer. 

So what can an apparel guy do with AI? Use it on what I know. I’ve just incorporated my new venture RoboArt Labs, which combines the exciting world of artificial intelligence and my apparel background. To be continued!

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