Sitting on the couch with her fiance, Michelle Turk asked him why he was not as romantic as he use to be.
When Michelle asked her fiance at the time, now husband, Tyler Turk, 25, that question, it made him wonder how he could bring romance back into their relationship.
As a result, he created Date in a Crate, a monthly subscription box service where others can pay to receive a box where it features activities and ideas for a date night.
“We send out a box to our couples that include date night items, activities that are focused on improving and strengthening the relationship, while also giving a fun, spontaneous kind of alternative to date night,” Turk said.
The company started in December 2014, which is when his lifestyle started to change.
“I got four hours of sleep at night,” Turk said. “Every waking moment, every free moment that I do have, is spent on the business.”
While working two jobs, being a full-time student and working as an entrepreneur, Turk was stressed.
As an entrepreneur, “you have to be able to fight through the hard times to know that there’s an end result,” Turk said. “That there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.”
On Feb. 6, Fresno Chamber of Commerce named Turk College Entrepreneur of the Year at the 2016 Valley Business Awards and Installation Luncheon.
“I really want to use this to grow the business, but also to help other entrepreneurs, college students like me who want to start a business,” Turk said. “My goal is to kind of use my influence as much as I can to help them because I know what it feels like to be a college entrepreneur — you have to balance school while running a business.”
Prior to the launch of Date in a Crate, Turk was a recording artist.
Turk said being a recording artist and an entrepreneur go hand to hand with each other. He had to brand himself, learn how to create his own music, sell his music and get people excited about his performances.
“With songwriting, you have to be able to connect with your readers at some point and same thing goes for Date in a Crate,” Turk said. ‘We have to create and write these date nights that emotionally connect with these people.”
He found an interest in creating music when he obtained a role in his high school’s musical.
Essentially, he had a passion for football, not music, however, after tearing his anterior cruciate ligament [ACL] during his senior year of high school, he decided to audition for his school musical as a joke with his friends.
“I wanted to play college sports,” he said. “I just wanted to play sports somewhere and so I kind of geared my whole life towards that.”
His injury caused him to stop playing sports and made him learn how to pivot.
“I had to learn to pivot and so that’s a big term in entrepreneurship,” Turk said. “If you go find a problem, you have to pivot so you can change the business idea and go a different way.”
As an entrepreneur, there are challenges.
“What I have learned with Date in a Crate is you don’t really know what’s going to happen next, you really don’t know who you’re going to meet,” Turk said, “but the best thing that you could do is prepare for it.”
“I know that if I work hard now,” he added, “I know that there will be a larger reward at the end, whether that’s opportunity, whether that’s financial stability, whether that’s just growing as a person, so I know that I have to work hard now.”
