I have always known how to get an idea off the ground.
As the founder of East End Taste, a Hamptons-based events company, I had built my career through relationships, creativity, instinct, and determination.
For a long time, I believed those strengths were enough to move my small business forward, but then I wanted to expand my company. We had already been in operation for eight years, and I saw an opportunity to work with more clients.
As a single mom, I also hoped to be an example for my kids. I liked the idea that growing my business would teach them to be proud of what you have built while remaining willing to learn something new.
I knew it wouldn’t be easy to expand, but then I met my business partner. He approached nearly everything differently, but he helped take the small business to the next level.
My new business partner operates differently from me
Born in Venezuela, my business partner, Edberg Espinoza, has worked across project development, technology, and visual production.
Where I instinctively see relationships, possibilities, and creative opportunities, he looks for the structure required to support them.
I have often evaluated opportunities according to their potential. Could an introduction lead to a client? Could an event strengthen our reputation? Could a creative idea develop into a larger partnership?
Edberg understood that, but he wanted to know what happened after the introduction: Which relationships required follow-up? Which conversations had led to proposals? Which opportunities had become paid work? Which services were clients requesting repeatedly?
Those questions were more difficult for me to answer than I expected. The information existed, but it did not exist in one place. Parts of it were in my memory. Other parts were scattered among notebooks, business cards, text messages, email threads, and informal lists.
Edberg helped establish a centralized method for tracking contacts, conversations, potential opportunities, follow-ups, and responsibilities. Information that had previously existed primarily in my head became accessible within the company.
My relationships gave the company access. His systems helped us turn that access into consistent action.
My business partner then helped expand my business
As we reviewed client inquiries, project notes, and production requests, we began to notice the same combination of needs recurring. Brands were not necessarily looking for one isolated deliverable. They increasingly wanted connected support: event production, photography, video, editorial exposure, social content, and partner coordination managed through one trusted team.
I had seen each request as an individual opportunity. Edberg saw the operating model hidden inside those requests.
Instead of asking, “What else could East End Taste offer?” we began asking, “What are clients already asking East End Taste to become?”
Before investing in a new capability, we began asking more disciplined questions: Would this resource solve a problem that clients repeatedly brought to us? What personnel, training, and technology would be required? How would we price the service?
That shift allowed us to present clients with a clearer production model, rather than rebuilding the process from the beginning for every project.
Our differences were not always comfortable
I was accustomed to believing that if I said yes, I would somehow find a way to deliver. That determination has helped me build my career. It also meant that I occasionally accepted difficult timelines and relied on stamina to solve problems.
But that’s not how Edberg works. “No sugarcoating,” he would tell me.
At first, I sometimes experienced his directness as intensity. Over time, I came to understand that clarity was not pessimism. It was a form of responsibility.
The lesson for me is not that every founder needs an opposite. It is that we need someone who can recognize what our strengths leave unaddressed, and we need to be willing to listen. My instincts helped create opportunities. Edberg helped build the structure to follow through on them.
Start with the opportunities already in front of you
Now, when we consider a service, client, partnership, or investment, we ask three questions: What could it create? What will it require? Does it support the company we are deliberately building?
Today, our work extends across event production, staffing, photography, video, wellness, and hospitality activations. We have expanded our network of private chefs and other production partners. The systems we developed help us manage that broader scope with clearer responsibilities and deliverables.
My business partner did not replace the instincts that helped me establish my career. He gave me another perspective through which to test and strengthen them.
That is a lesson I want my children to carry into whatever they choose to do: You can trust your abilities and still have something to learn from someone who sees things differently.
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