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January 21, 2008

Lessons of a small biz owner

In January 2005, I started on the adventure of a lifetime and opened my own web design studio. Most people who do this generally have a few contacts, a few bucks as a cushion, and a lot of prayers. For me, the decision was made easier by signing a long term contract with a company that would allow me to pay the bills even if I was without any other work. This client has been my bread-and-butter for two years, but on December 31, 2007 the gravy train came to an end.

I’ll be honest, the initial shock of this situation was, well, shocking. I can’t even begin to explain the emotional roller coaster that my family has been on over the past two months. But I can say that I’ve learned a lot over the years, and I thought that someone somewhere might be able to benefit from these lessons.

1. Build a Network

Because I had a hefty contract to lean on just starting out, I wasn’t concerned about my lack of industry contacts. I knew a few people that I had worked with in the past, but I had no clue how I was going to tap them for work. Slowly but surely over the past two years I have made connections with some fantastically talented people at great companies. I’ve established great working relationships with companies in Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Richmond, VA, and most recently right here in Greenville, SC. On average, 90% of my work is done for, or through, someone in my network.

2. Get Organized

My face is a little red on this one as I’m still learning learning as I go, but it is oh-so-important. Generating processes, questionnaires, templates, charts, and inventories wasn’t exactly high on my list of priorities when I really didn’t need to bring in a lot of work. Silly, silly, me. I would have greatly benefited from getting these things in order when life was more comfortable. My documentation is a continuously evolving to accommodate the changes in the industry, and each time it gets a little better.

3. Have a backup plan

No, I don’t mean a job. Have a plan to backup your computer(s) and be unrelenting when putting it into action. Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way. One morning I found my Mac needing a refresh of the operating system. I started using SuperDuper! shortly after I started my company, but never once did I actually read the manual or check that my backup was working (mistakes #1 and #2). On that fateful day I also learned that reinstalling the system with a corruption big enough to cause the installation process to fail will cost you a lot of time and money if you don’t have a good backup. Two days of time wasted, one hard drive extracted and sent to DriveSavers (who, by the way, I can’t say enough good things about), and $1,800 later I got a mish-mash of my files back.

I still use SuperDuper!, but I check my backups weekly. I also have a multi-tiered backup plan that takes into account even the worse case scenario of my office burning down. Every morning at 2am my computer backs up to a network drive. At 4am another backup is made to a partitioned 500GB Firewire MyBook. Finally at 6am all new files are remotely backed up to my Amazon S3 account using JungleDisk. Overkill, you say? For someone who shelled out $1,800, this backup plan actually feels a bit weak, but it works for now. I plan on buying a 1TB RAID configuration dual harddrive system where the drives mirror each other. Don’t take this lightly and learn from my mistake.

4. Take some “me” time

Let’s be realistic, as a small business you will not work 40 billable hours a week on average. You might work a total of 60 in any given week, but about half of those hours will be billable. The other half of that time will be hunting down billable work, writing proposals, filling out paperwork, and doing all of the business development stuff that you can’t actually charge to do. Some of these things include reading blogs, surfing the web, reading magazines, blogging, and building your company identity. Learn to relax and be okay with taking the time to do all of that. If you don’t, then enjoy the cubicle that you’re destined to return to in the near future.

5. Don’t stop thinkin’ about tomorrow

I’m always baffled when I see a new and brilliant idea that makes me say, “Why didn’t I think of that...dang it?!”. Not only are these great sources of recurring income for someone who is relying on a less than steady source of income, but they further our industry as a whole.

For me, trying to just dream up one of these ideas hasn’t work. If you look at any of the aforementioned links, they all fill what was probably a personal need for the people involved. I’ve finally had my “ah-ha” moment...I think. If all goes well, you’ll find out what it is later this year. That’s all I have to say about that.

These five things only touch the tip of the iceberg with lessons that I’ve learned. I could have mentioned things like find a great bookkeeper, listen to good advice, get wise counsel for difficult decisions, keep purchases to a minimum, make good use of your resources, don’t get comfortable in the moment, guard your personal time, try to pull as few all-nighters as possible, send everyone in your network a Christmas card (oops!), keep an orderly workspace, be willing to grow and contract work out, set reasonable but challenging goals, and so many others. There’s a lot more to learn.

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