I have a friend who just started his own WordPress blog, and in a comment on his new site, I told him that everybody has to start somewhere.  Which is true.  We should cut new bloggers, new students, and new businesses a lot of slack, since newbies often make mistakes,  If they learn from their mistakes, that helps them become better at whatever they are attempting.

This came home to me in 1987, when I was in the market for a new violin.  I went “shopping” with my teacher (I called her my “enforcer”), and we looked at a lot of instruments, old and new.  In the string-instrument world, older is often better, and old Italian is considered the very best.  However, older is often way too expensive for an amateur player who is not independently wealthy.  Old Italian violins by the best makers can cost in the millions of dollars, and even professionals who make lots of money can’t afford to own them.  Often foundations will lend professional players old violins to play, and everyone wins.

At music camp in 1987, a young local violin-maker brought some of his instruments for the campers to try out.  I tried out one, and really liked it.  When I returned home, I contacted my teacher, and we went to his shop to check out the instrument I liked.  She played it, and was quite impressed with how it sounded.  She had an old Italian violin, and she told us that the new one sounded a lot like her old one.  My thought at the time was “Even Stradivari needed to start somewhere-when he was a young maker just starting out, his instruments were all new and he had no established reputation.  He needed to persuade violinists to play and buy his instruments, to earn his reputation”.  So I bought the new instrument, and have been playing it and enjoying it ever since.

So, it’s OK to seek out new businesses or bloggers just starting out.  Just think, you might be helping someone become really famous, and you will be able to say “I knew him when”.