inluminent

Scott answered a lot of my questions on starting a new business here, but I think perhaps he read some of my ramblings a little too literally. Here’s my response to his response.

[SJ] I’d be very, very careful here. Thanks to the wonders of the media, the business press and the dot com era, we all (heck, myself included) seem to think that a job, any job, has to be infinitely fulfilling or we should bail on it. In a perfect world that might be true. In a bad economic environment, that’s just not true — by a long shot. Right now you need to be glad to just have a job. And a job at even a badly run company is still a job. There are lots and lots of people that would kill for a full time job right now.

Yes, I’m lucky to have a job, and its actually a good job, just a shitty company… (I’ll elaborate some other time). So, yes, I am thankful, and that’s part of the problem…

If you have questions about quitting your job, that’s a good sign that your “subconscious” or “intutitive” side may be trying to tell you something. Or it could be fear. Do the whole long walk, soul searching thing and try and divine an answer. Bear in mind that we probably still have 12 to 18 months of hard economic times ahead and if you leave your job you may not be able to get another or one as good.

Let me clear up two things here. 1. Some stuff happened on Friday that confused the matter. If we start the business, then I won’t be quitting my current job until the cash flow is more substantial, and guaranteed… 2. The stuff that happened on Friday just clouds the issue, and isn’t related to starting a business with my partners.

No guarantees of income? Yikes and Double Yikes. I’d strongly encourage you to find out, in advance of product development, if people will pay. Bear in mind that the high tech customer’s threshold of pain towards paying is higher than ever and getting higher all the time. Try mocking up the product or service extensively and then put together your pricing and product literature and see if people will buy. See if you offer a 50% discount if they’ll sign on the dotted line.

You know, I hear what you’re saying here Scott, but the problem is that the ‘product’ is already in a tight and small market, and so we don’t want to throw it out there, unless we’re actually doing this, and we are doing this. Also, how can an entreprenuer really guarantee an income if he’s paying himself? It’s all dependant on the market that’s buying his crap right? So, while this is a worry, its offset for me by the fact that the costs of entry into our market are relatively small… and by that I mean less than 10K/year to enter this market.

Distrust of your partners? That’s a deal breaker for me. Flat out deal breaker. The way I look at it is any startup business becomes a relationship as intimate as a marriage. If not closer. You wouldn’t get married to someone you distrusted, would you? Well, perhaps, but raging hormones aside, you probably wouldn’t. So, if you accept my thesis on intimacy, why in the world would you get in bed with a partner you didn’t trust fully?

Let me state this unequivicolly. I trust my partners, and always have. It’s the potential for distrust in the future, that could ruin the friendships that worries me. Its more of a worry in my heart, not in my head… good friends are hard to find and easy to loose. Especially when money is involved right?

Your own abilities. We all suffer from self doubt from time to time and this doesn’t scare me in the least. Most of us will rise to the challenge time and time again. Just use the classic engineering problem decomposition approach — if you can’t solve it, solve the part you can and then a bit more and a bit more until you are done.

Yeah, this is just me whining

Dedication? That’s a bad thing. Everyone needs to be very, very dedicated in a startup, particularly in a bad economy. That kinda goes without saying. Bear in mind that new businesses are hard and, in the beginning, everyone has to be super dedicated to get it going. That’s the whole idea of “sweat equity”.

Everyone is dedicated today, and I’ve no doubt they’ll be dedicated tomorrow… it’s just a nagging worry. Not much I can do about it, so I’m actually sort of moving past this one…

I do agree that, confusingly, down economies are some of the best times to start new businesses. As long as you don’t need much in the way of revenues, the fact that everything is SO much cheaper is fantastic. But, while the other players may be worn out, that doesn’t mean they are dead in the water — often times they will fight like demons to preserve what they have.

I expect the other guys in the market to fight like dogs, and they can be a force to reckon with if they want to be, but the thing is… I just don’t see them beating us. I’ve seen them all make really dumb decisions over the past 5-10 years, and I don’t think they’ll change all that much. With the force we’re coming out of the blocks with, the real key will be to keep our own momentum up, and not get distracted by stupid opportunities that stray from our business plan.

[SJ] There never is. You also need to bear in mind that you have an obligation to the person paying your salary to give them what they pay you for. I’m not saying that you can’t or shouldn’t start a business on the side but that, even if they are dumb as rocks and running the company badly, they still pay you a salary and you should do a good job for them.

Yes, I’m fully aware of this, and the kicker is that my current job pays me by commission, so the only person I’m screwing is myself, and my wife, if I don’t keep doing a good job. Plus, as a salesperson, I have to keep the clients happy or they won’t be there tomorrow… And who knows if this new venture will be… know what I’m saying?

Get really, really aggressive about time management. Most things can be done more quickly than you guess if you try.

This is actually one of my strong points, so thanks for the tip. I’ll keep it in mind.

Also, I checked out bizfilings.com and found some useful information, but not much in depth. I think what I’m looking for is really some of the stuff that you only get from a lawyer, or consultant. For example, I’d love to see someone’s example of a good set of ‘articles of incorporation’ or ‘operating bylaws’ but I realize those documents are usually more confidential to any particular company, and are almost always one time use documents, in that they can and should be fairly specific and/or customized.

I’ve really gotten a lot of great information from ABC’s Getting Started section, and plan to continue to dive head first into more of these articles…

Latest update is that after much soul searching over the weekend, we’ve started the process of forming the company. My wife and I had dinner with our lawyer tonight (wife’s not part of the business directly, but she’s still in charge of me) and I paid him for his services. He’ll deliver the legal paperwork in short order, and we’ll start this puppy. I’ll announce more when its live, or close to live. Stay tuned…