Friday, October 2, 2009

The mobile entrepreneur

As high school students, we were just kids working in the basement spinning out codes and websites. We were not only young, we were solo entrepreneurs and we worked out of our basement. We had many requests for meetings and we used coffee shops many times to help faciliate business meetings. Granted we had to compete with the espresso machines most of the time with….WHAT??!!??? SORRYYYYY…..CAN U REPEAT???? and the awkward SHOUT over the espresso machine when it stopped and you didn’t realized it stopped. Company meetings were done in the basement with a big helping of snacks and lots of green tea – our meetings usually lasted around two hours. Why so long? Because we were so relaxed – we spent an hour and a half doing casual chatter until we realized we have to get down to business.

The cheques started coming in but where are they sending it to?? Well I guess my house will do for now…. My tip for every one out there starting a business: Do not use your house address unless you intend to find your client on the other side of the door and you in your pajamas completely and utterly stunned. Please don’t use your home address, EVER. My second tip? If you can’t answer your phone 80% of the business working hours, get a phone answering service. I was answering my cell phone at school and none of my teachers were impressed.

So we made the transition into using a commercial mailbox…. I then got a call from the UPS store from a gentleman who kindly informed me that a client of ours has shown up to our “office” to only find a UPS store and he was wondering if it was a mistake. You bet, a COLLOSSAL mistake – by us!

I seriously don’t know what the big deal with the fascination with working from home or in a coffee shop is.   It is a good place to start but leave as soon as possible…

Quote of the day:

“Leaders are the most result-oriented individuals in the world”

Warren Bennis

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