Archive for the ‘Reflection’ Category

Thoughts on Starting a Business in a Recession

chase

Where to begin? Quit your job, read the Four Hour Work Week, then what? There’s a ton to figure out and we are certainly in the thick of it getting pluURL off the ground.

Today, Yaw and I ventured to the local Chase bank in business casual, prepared with our letter of incorporation, Employee ID Number, and eager to open a small business account. The process was pretty quick and it was made more entertaining by the fact that our consultant was in the same fraternity as us. He didn’t cook our numbers when we asked him to file our small business loan application, but he did longingly reflect on his college days and trips to Vegas (pre-marriage).

However, one important thing he relayed to us was just how unpredictable securing a small business loan can be. He explained that a small business loan (or a line of credit) is loosely tied to an individual’s credit history … but that’s about it. Startup costs, projected expenses and monthly income … just plug in the numbers click send and pray.

As we grow our business, it’s a increasingly clear that a loan is essential to bring people on full time. From organizing client calls to picking up last-minute design and development work – there’s a lot that needs to get done and two full timers can only handle so much.

A loan won’t necessarily make money fall from trees but it will certainly bring us one step closer to making processes more efficient.

Business Lesson: Just because we could, doesn’t mean we should

prometheus-bang-head-against-wallJust because we could do something, does not mean we should do something (It’s kind of like that guy, in class who always raises his hand).  It sounds so obvious yet it amazes me how many times we repeat this mistake over and over again.

Whenever there’s a great idea, we work with extremely talented people who can preform multiple roles. I can say from experience, that just because I can design doesn’t mean I should be the designer;  just because I can develop doesn’t mean I should be the developer, etc etc.

Because of his/her skill set, an entrepreneur is  is well-suited to wear many hats. I tell this to people so often they are probably rolling their eyes while reading this.

I almost want to say that the entrepreneur’s dilemma is wearing too many hats. To clarify, micromanaging is every entrepreneur’s fatal flaw. He/she feels compelled to hold on to every part of the operation. When I was in college I ran the student media conglomerate (Slope Media) that I started very inefficiently, because I tried to control all the processes.

Since we are young, we feel that we can always take on infinite projects by simply working longer and harder. However, at the end of the day, working infinitely results in the ultimate sacrifice: complete loss of time. Time to plan, time to focus, and time for self-reflection. You can’t raise time from a venture capitalist no matter how many times you pitch.

The ability to create more time then almost becomes more valuable than the ability to create more capital. Focusing one’s time on bringing in new business or growing an existing business is ia highly sought after assets that can’t be raised.

Good resources on entrepreneurship:

Earlier this week, Jonny wrote a blog post on the topic of group/small business collaboration tools. These are some of the vehicles we are starting to implement in our business processes and procedures to not only work more efficiently as an organization, but to create more time to grow and create new business opportunities. (Read the article on wiggio, google docs, deskaway and basecamp)

Today, we put up another post about jobs. We are asking you the reader, our friends, our family to refer talented people to help us learn from our mistakes of the past. Instead of wearing many hats (and leaving the office every day at 3am) we are trying to define our processes and procedures to scale, even if it means letting go a little.

If you have any input, suggestions or resources, feel free to give us feedback by leaving a comment or sending us a tweet @pluURL