In university and at business school, I took lots of courses on entrepreneurship. These classes would address every aspect of creating a new business, from starting with a killer idea and writing a business plan to pitching investors and building a team. It was a highly structured – if somewhat formulaic – approach to business building.

But what if your business didn’t start as a business idea, but a passion project? What if you didn’t come up with a master plan, and instead had to figure one out as you went along? What if your new business happened to be in media, an industry that seemed to be on the verge of collapsing? This was the kind of journey business school did not prepare me for.

After years in management consulting, I had just left my first entrepreneurial venture in fashion – and it had been a failure. I had been keeping a private blog so my family and friends could live my fashion adventure vicariously, but it had been cut short. What was I going to do now?

I had already met a few fashion bloggers – Diane Pernet, Anina Trepte and Scott Schuman – and I wondered why nobody was writing about the fashion business. So in 2007 with $100 and rudimentary design skills in Powerpoint, I skinned a new blog like a black-and-white newspaper, created a clunky looking header, and called it ‘The Business of Fashion’. It probably took just two hours to set up.

In the beginning I wrote one or two articles per week. I came up with ideas, conducted research, proofed and copyedited, selected and cropped the images, and pressed the publish button. It was fun and so easy! 

Alongside my consulting work, I began learning about the fashion business by writing about it. It became a cathartic, creative process that helped me make sense of an industry that was undergoing significant disruption caused by the combined forces of globalisation, the digital revolution and the Great Recession.

My motivation came from the positive feedback I got from the budding BoF community. In January 2007, BoF had 191 visitors, from there people seemed to magically discover it. As a data junkie, it was thrilling to see the traffic stats tick up every month without any marketing whatsoever. With the rise of Facebook and Twitter, it became even easier for people to share BoF articles. I began to understand, first-hand, the power of original content and ideas in the digital age and how these could be used to build a brand and global audience.

BoF took on a life of its own. It could not have happened without the power of the web, which helped connect me with a global community. I was able to build BoF slowly, with a series of little digital experiments all focused on creating high-quality content based on insight, analysis and ideas. 

Five years later I found myself financing a blog, with no revenue model, supported by a passionate team of part-time employees and volunteer contributors in more than a dozen countries. All the while I managed BoF from my flat in London while travelling the world advising global fashion companies, teaching at Central Saint Martins, and working with technology start-ups. 

I was up at all hours of the night, scrambling to keep up with everything; I had no infrastructure or budget to support what had now grown from a one-man band into a small virtual team split across continents. I felt a big sense of responsibility to deliver only the highest quality content, but I wasn’t sure how I would keep it going.

It soon became clear that of all the arrows in my fashion quiver, it was BoF that had the potential to become something that could last. It also presented the most interesting challenge and was closest to my heart. But I also knew it could only continue to grow if I focused on it full time, built a proper team, and raised some financing. Those business school classes actually did come in handy! 

In 2013, with the support of investors who saw potential in BoF, I began to build a full-time team. There are now 14 of us working in a small office in London. Having a team has been the most important factor in our continued growth, and is the key to our future success. I focus on finding fellow fashion nerds who are smart and passionate about the business of fashion. This continues to be the foundation of BoF’s success. 

But having a team and investors, has also brought a whole set of new challenges and lessons. Some days, it can make decision-making a lot slower. I also spend more of my time in meetings and managing people, but I am still involved in creating and shaping BoF content and the path that we are taking.

These days, I don’t have too much time to think about my journey. But I get the sense that this is only the beginning. It’s the most exhilarating feeling to find meaning and purpose in your work.

Indeed when you can align your purpose and passion in life with your career, magical things can happen.