Watching Myself From A Distance-->

As I look to the future I can't help but glance over my shoulder. I see a lot behind me that is good, bad and indifferent. In my former company I let costs get out of control and watched some of our best talent walk away because we couldn't afford to pay them any more. There's not a lot of distance between now and those situations and I feel weighed down by it in many ways. I've worked very hard to correct mistakes after the split between my partner and I on the Cogwise Software company. I established two new companies and pushed away from the past mistakes while learning from them. I've learned that I create great software and I'm an excellent software architect. My ideas about using technology to help small businesses could revolutionize small businesses that work with me. I also learned that I need ways to control cost so I can offer my services to smaller businesses that normally wouldn't be able to afford it. Lastly I learned I need an accountant and a decent lawyer to call on if I need them. No matter how good your intentions are for some people and how much you jump over yourself to help them you can still get screwed. 

I did decide to never take on a partner for my core businesses and only take on venture partners. When I say 'venture partners' I mean partners for a specific opportunity. Further I took up a practice I used to do years ago. I did a quarterly self-review on each client and gave them advice. I also rated my service to them and gave them the opportunity to give me feedback. This keeps the lines of communication open and helps foster a stronger relationship between myself and the client. 

I've also been getting my hands dirty by getting in the code and providing more feedback to my developers to help tune them to a mold that works for my brand. Recently I got screwed in a big way from one of my clients who had me worked on a contract that was supposed to sustain our business for about 8 weeks or so. I didn't work on bringing in new business because I was working on growing my new companies slow. Well, this client decided after 5 days of coding (which is almost no time when you have an 8 week project) that we weren't meeting goals fast enough. Even after we met the goals outlined in the first milestone they decided to drop us and not pay for our work to that point. I guess that's what I get for trusting someone so young who doesn't really understand development. You know who you are but I won't put your name out in public because I don't do that kind of thing. Now, I know this person has been burned a few times by other developers and that's why they were hesitant to trust me but I've been doing this 11 years and I have a huge reputation to uphold so I wouldn't screw anyone. I have a tattoo on my shoulder of a circle with two arrows that means 'What goes around comes around' so I don't take it lightly when someone thinks I'm trying to screw them. I never have an intention to screw anyone and I work hard to build the best software money can buy in a thoughtful and properly paced manner. You can't pay for professional software development from scratch and have a functional product in 5 days. 

But, whatever, at this point I'm doing my best to recoup my loss and find new contracts to put in place of the one I got screwed on. I've never really been without work so I'm sure something will come along soon. But I hope that it comes sooner rather than later and I'm working every angle I can to look for new work (which I haven't had to do in years). I'm not deterred even though I may sound like it. I'm emboldened and will soon use my ideas and executive ability to produce awesome software for those who need my services.