Who Took A Chance On You?

Maybe it felt like you were earning your way at the time, accomplishing tasks on your own merit, but looking back doesn’t it often feel more like someone took a chance on you?

I’m not where I’d like to be in terms of career or job, but everything is progress. Bruce Houghton, who runs Hypebot.com, was one of the first people to take a chance on me, an unproven writer, accepting a pitch to write a post. The site brings all types of people together around the common theme of music and the business behind it. It’s been a gateway to meeting people whose work I admire and opportunities to write for other sites.

I wrote an article, published on Hypebot, about how the iTunes store is one of the best places to sift through curated music selections and actually discover new music. The article was read by Om Malik, who runs GigaOm.com, and republished the link on his post ‘7 stories To Read This Weekend’. Someone who gets paid and writes professionally may have brushed it off, but I didn’t, it made my day and my week. Om has since republished a link to another story I wrote about Google Music All Access, also making me appreciate the little things that can only be counted as progress.

Brannon McAllister is another person who took a chance on me, inviting me to do posts for NoiseTrade’s blog. I’m not sure how much thought he put into allowing me to contribute, but it’s still something I don’t take lightly. He took a chance.

Sometimes it’s hard to see the little things happening in the midst of a bigger destination you have in mind. But don’t forget to look back and see who took a chance on you before looking forward and taking a chance on someone else.

[Visit StartUpEdition.com to find others answering the same question, “Who took a chance on you?” The site asks different people different questions each week relevant to start ups and the start up world.]