Cogwise Solutions-->

After some reflection I will be starting a new company at the beginning of the year. This is regardless of whether or not I do anything else. I am going to create a more localized company here in Nashville and adopt some new strategies I’ve been working on for the past couple months. I will go in to more detail in a later post but I’m looking forward to a fresh start with a new company. It’s very likely I won’t be taking on a business partner this time. Instead I’m going to work on strategic partnerships for specific parts of the business.

It’s funny to be called a "Serial Entrepenuer" as I didn’t really see myself that way but I guess the label applies well. I do start a lot of businesses and if they don’t work I’m quick to learn from them and move on. But much of my history as an entrepenuer was as a sole proprietorship and just in the past 3 1/2 years have I been dealing on more of a corporate scale and managing larger teams. I like to fail small, learn quickly, adapt and apply that wisdom. I tend to be an extremely good architect and thinker but need people around me to continue to force me to continue action in my chosen direction. Luckily, I have friends and family who are very supportive and I’m thinking with this new company I won’t need to draw on the strength of a partner to balance out my personal flaws. Plus, over the past year or so I’ve worked hard at balancing my idiosyncrasies in a way that will benefit me in the long run.

I still love the "Cogwise" brand and discussed it with my former partner that my new company will buy the branding from the old company along with any other materials that the company owned. So, I hope to continue to build on the success of the Cogwise brand and counter the small flaws and lower the high overhead that were a part of the old Cogwise company. The new company will be called "Cogwise Solutions". This is a more inclusive brand based on the fact that we will offer consulting services, marketing services as well as software development services. Further, we will still be able to take advantage of some of the relationships we have built with the previous Cogwise company.

I’m working on building some new strategic partnerships to strengthen the brand and to repair issues that were a part of the old company. This will be a huge challenge but I’m looking forward to facing it in the coming year! Also, I want to continue to build on our internal software projects. I need to put all the advice I’ve received to good use and this move is a measured reaction to the advice that I’ve received.

This doesn’t mean I won’t be considering other routes or combining the other opportunities that have been preseneted to me with this current move. It means this is my decided direction and my other decisions will be based off of what helps me maintain and strengthen the long term viability of the brand.