Our Story

It was the scariest day of my life.

Not scary in a traditional sense — I didn’t have the same type of nerves one would have when strapping in to the world’s highest roller coaster or preparing to sky dive for the first time. It was a different type of scary. A scarier type of scary.

It was my first day as a self-employed entrepreneur.

I grabbed my laptop, slid it into its bag and pulled the strap onto my shoulder. When I came out of the bedroom of our small, second story apartment, my wife greeted me from a rocker in the corner of the room. She held Ben, our brand new baby boy, sweetly in her arms. He had a hard time falling asleep unless someone was holding him — a habit we would correct early on with our future kids.

She smiled softly at me. We said our goodbyes as I kissed my baby boy on the forehead. “Wish me luck,” I sighed. “Oh!” my wife exclaimed as she stood up, handing me the baby. “I almost forgot!”

She ran to the kitchen and came back a moment later, a hand behind her back.

“A good luck charm for your first day!” She handed me what would become the very best gift I would ever receive.

A single dollar bill. Not crisp or unused. Instead, it was tattered, dirty and worn down.

At some point throughout the early morning, she had folded the dollar bill to take the shape of a work shirt — the collar folded slightly unevenly with one of the sleeves bent backwards.

“To help you remember why you work so hard…”

My office wasn’t far away. Without traffic, it only took about 5 minutes to get there. Some mornings, it likely would have been faster to walk. I parked my car in the dirty lot, walked up the chipped stairs, past the broken alarm system and pulled out my office key for the first time. I opened the door to find my brand new office — no bigger than a closet — completely empty.

I was able to track down a broken down desk and a scratched up filing cabinet. It was nothing fancy. My desk was largely empty, except for the dollar bill that I pulled out of my computer bag and placed at the corner of my desk, propped up against a picture of me and my wife.

And suddenly I wasn’t in an empty office anymore. I was in a room full of possibilities. I was home.

I eventually moved on from my broom closet office. I upgraded to another, slightly nicer broom closet for a brief time, and later got a much nicer office around the corner. Now, I work from a beautiful home office, allowing me to see my kids and hold them much more often than ever before.

The offices changed. But that dollar bill never changed. It moved & it grew with me. It was there during the late nights, the early mornings & those months where I truly wondered how I would provide for my family.

It was always there to remind me why I worked so hard.

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When I began Fennec Gear in 2018, I wanted to create products that helped people work hard and do their best work, the same way that my dollar bill helped me do my best work.

I hope that our products, whether it’s headphone stands or desk pads, help you stay organized, be more productive & stay focused on why you work so hard.

Steve
The Fennec Gear Team