Will Bridges

For a long time I looked for a parter to handle the main programming side of this business while I handled the business side of it. But, really, I don’t think it’s necessary any longer as I have learned how to balance both and I have found a couple team members that can take care of most of the intense labor of programming while I manage the business. So, rather, I’m building a team of developers with different skill sets and roles all across the world. Specifically, I’m working to cover each time zone within 6 hours of each other so it’s possible we could have people working 24 hours a day. 

I don’t think it’s impossible to get a partner but I’m skeptical about trusting one person to help me manage an empire that I’m building. Maybe the people I know are too fickle but I’ve put energy and faith in to people I thought would make good partners and I could have been using that energy to build a team of developers. Not only that but a partner wants half and a team member just wants to make a living and have a sustainable role. 

Also, the references I have gained have put a lot more work in my range. Over the past few months I’ve had a strategy of building good references which could be used to build better references. Relationships are key to maintaining a successful business as I believe I have said in the past. So far, my strategy is working pretty well. Another prong of my strategy has been to build content driven sites that will gain audience. That plan has started in it’s primary stages as I’ve been gaining money to invest in these sites for my business. 

The first site I am launching is The Nashville Review which is a site dedicated to doing video restaurant views. I got the site designed, the cards made and I’ve been training my girlfriend on how to edit video. I bought an extra mac for her to edit video on. We also bought a consumer high definition video camera (the Panasonic SD5) which has proven to be a good camera but I probably should have got something else. It’s missing a hotshoe (for an external light source) and an external mic input which is problematic. So, our first few videos may be a little poorer quality than I would like but it will still be good in my opinion. We have already shot video for two restaurants and will shoot video for two more before we launch. I expect our launch for this site to be in May.

I also launched a poetry website WillBridges.name where I will be writing one poem a day for the next year. That’s been a little challenging to keep content flowing but I’ve gained some readers pretty rapidly and expect the base to keep growing over the next year.

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There are really two major things to figure out in any business but especially in this business. You need to figure out how to get high quality clients who will pay a fair wage in and then you need to figure out how to best find the cheapest and highest quality labor to satisfy the work you have promised. Then you have to keep your labor force happy and employed. These may seem like easy things to figure out but they are most certainly not easy. I have worked for 8 years and have just now figured out a formula I am pretty sure I can make work in this industry at least for the next 5-10 years.

Being wealthy is about finding windows of opportunity and exploiting them. You cannot expect something to last forever and you have to constantly have to adapt your strategy to stay relevant. Even when you find a window of opportunity and are successfully exploiting it you should save and build for the next window of opportunity you come across. This is a constant effort of prediction, strategy and balance which can only end when you are ready to get out of business.

The great thing is I finally figured out what tools I need to grow, how I can catch up and overtake past difficulty and start really building my empire. Wish me success.

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I’ve been working with AllstarLoding.com for years now to improve their site and their business. They went from being relatively small and managing about 20 cabins to managing 100+ properties in about 3 years. I attribute a large part of their success to their website, of course! They now dominate their area in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and are still expanding. The company is also doing well because it’s run by a very sound business man, Carlos Ruiz. He has a lot of foresight and vision. I came to him a year ago when he was thinking about revamping the software I had built him. He wanted to go with an ‘out of the box’ solution and was researching the massive amounts of reservation software out there. I asked him to let me do it in Ruby on Rails and let me sit in on the demonstration for some of these ‘out of the box’ or pre-built solutions. I sat in and gathered all the information I needed to build a very solid reservation system in rails. Now, mind you, I was very new to rails at the time and I’m still cleaning up things that I should have done a different way but it was a learning process and I still created a magnificent piece of software, which is being improved on all the time.

I’m actually working to generalize it so it can be sold to other companies and re-used. There are parts that I built in a very modular fashion but some parts I built very specific to his business. So, now is the tedious part of generalizing, writing tests that should have been written (at the time I wasn’t doing BDD or TDD) and building test instances of the software. This software is not just a reservation system but a complete software solution to vacation rental management and I like to think of it as the tool to use for any vacation oriented business to take over their respective area.

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So, my partner has left the organization and the flood of incoming work occurs. I still have him part-time at about 80-100 hours per month. But, the lack of a full-time programmer is something I'm handling in stride. It does mean that until I find an accpetable solution to my human resources problem I will be wary to accept new projects without start dates that put the start of any new projects in November at this point. But, it doesn't mean I can stop the company's natural progression. So, there's a fine balance between work load and ability to do that work load. However, now that I have less time all the possible clients are coming out of the wood work with new work. It's like someone turned the faucet higher after I just went to get a smaller bucket to receive the water. But, you know, life must go on and I cannot fret too much about more business.

I do have a very strong candidate I am interested in for my partner's replacement but I'm still unsure if he will be coming aboard or not. So,temporarily, I'm going to post an ad on jobs.rubynow.com and look for some contractors that may be worthwhile. This has turned out to be less than useful in the past but it did provide some very good information on the market forces in regard to Ruby on Rails work. This time I actually intend to find someone. I think it will go a lot smoother. And hey, it's free to post a job offer.

I find myself looking at my new computer system setup and realizing that it has improved my efficiency. I don't doubt my ability as a good business man never doubts his ability but still seeks to improve it. I feel very positive about what's going on right now and I feel that this is a golden era for my company and my family. I know that I will still need to find someone soon that has even more to bring to my company than my old partner. But, hopefully a new set of tools (computer system) and a new outlook with a fresh chance to go back on my own for a couple months may be just what I need now.

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We just finished developing a promising new site called 'Friendly Table'. This website can be found at http://www.friendlytableonline.com. It's a site that promises to match people up of similar interests to go to dinner and meet in person so that new friends can be made. An actual person (the owner) picks the people who she thinks will best match up and then picks the restaurant based on common cuisine type and the time. Then that group of people goes out to dinner and hopefully makes friends with one another. It's a cool concept and I believe she will do well. So, round of applause for the new website.

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Last night I got the notification that my partner wanted to move on to a new company. The good thing is he is returning all of his shares back to me. So, I can find another partner without being impeded by the amount of shares I have given out. On this day I feel relieved  and exhausted looking at my company's future. I'm relieved because I can find someone with more business sense and really take this buisness to it's next level. I can find someone interested in 'Building A Legacy'. I'm exhausted because of the sheer amount of work that needs to be done and the main resource I have to do it is gone. However, I can double up on my programming time. It just could make it difficult for a while to run the business and manage client relationships while I have my head in code.

However, I'm not new to this. I managed my business when it was a third of this level just fine by myself. But, now it is 3 times larger. I think I may have found some reasonably priced contractors to assist me in the programming tasks. Also, I think I may have found the best candidate for a new partner. I never panic and that's the key to staying stable. You must take everything in stride, stay confident and strong. Panic will bring on more panic and will create a spiral effect. I'm pleased with the way things have worked out so far and I'm sure that this time next year my former partner will greatly regret his decision and my new partner and I will be the leaders of a very strong company. 

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Over the last few days I have been having some issues with one of the employees of our corporation. He basically created a bidding war for himself. At first I was all about giving him whatever he wanted to stay because he's been a vital part to our business for so long. Then I actually discussed the issue with some colleages and family/friends. Their take is that he is a part owner in the company (he has shares) and for him to go to our client and ask for a job, which is what caused this bidding war, was not only a bad move but it was an embarrasment to the company which he in part owns. So, I basically ended up offering him two documents. One document is a complete removal of his relationship with the company aside from any contracting and the other is a complete renewal of his relationship with the company with new terms not allowing him to look for employment from our clients and also making him give the company a 60 days notice before ending his employment with the company.

My response was not to enter the bidding war. I didn't offer more money, more vacation or financial incentive as the competition is. My response is "If you want to make more money then work harder, come up with more ideas, sacrafice because  you are one of the two owners in the company." If it were an employee who did not also own the company and help control it's direction I may have offered more to him. But, if it's his company too I can't come up with any logic that says the company can give him more. Him asking for more seems to be like asking me to take less and generally I already take less than he does. Another thing I did was look back on his actual work and I noticed the time spent over the past couple months was not over or above by much on the normal 160 hours a month. So, it seems to me if you are complaining about pay, risk or insonsistancy you are not an entrepreneur but an employee posing as an entrepreneur. If you are an entrepreneur you don't complain about these things instead you work to fix them and stomach the risk while you are working on it. Entrepreneurship is not for everyone and I will say as I have said before stop saying "I want my own business because I want to set my own hours and I don't want a ceiling on my pay" if you can't take the risk necessary to make that happen and you aren't willing to take on a little temporary hardship to make it happen.

This whole article gives the impression that we may not being doing very well. When actually, the opposite is true. Most businesses take 3+ years to get where we have gotten in 9 months.  We've grown our monthly income 300% in those 9 months and have learned some very good lessons about pricing which made us increase our prices over the past two months. We have full coverage health insurance and are starting to now build some savings and pay off some of our early start-up costs with vendors we were in debt to.  We have enough clients and respect from our clients to build an even stronger and higher paying client base over the next 9 months. I feel we are in a very strong position and leaving a position of power in this company is a a foolish move. If he leaves then so be it. I can brush up enough do his job but he cannot do my job and I'll find someone soon enough that sees the potential and wants to replace him. There's no hard feelings here. This is business and the first one to get emotional about these type of things is the first one to lose. If he does leave he has left this company in a great position and he deserves an outstanding reference. 

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From time to time estimating a project's length can be tricky if you have very little in the way of specs. It's probably best to not even quote the project and go hourly under this cicumstance. About 9 months ago we quoted a client on some work. This client happens to be a close friend of mine. I told him what I thought it would take at the time with the resources I had back then. Since then we've raised our rates by a lot, hired a couple more folks and changed the way we do business. The site was launched behind schedule in an incomplete status. They've asked for all kinds of additions and changes to the project. I was happy to give it to them but didn't warn them every time they asked for something that it was puttting us further behind. We were building a software package that could be reusable and so I didn't mind the extra features.

So, now they are really pissed because the project is still not complete and I only have a week's time this month to dedicate to their project which may or may not be enough. It's a behemoth of a project which is over 100 hours outside of it's budget. So, what to do? Well, I've learned some lessons.

1. Do not do extra work for a client outside the scope of the project without charging and increasing the deadline (yes, I should know this already but have made this mistake regardless of the fact I know it. Generally make this mistake with friends only.)
2. When doing work for friends make no or very little special considerations because they are friends after the contract is signed. The contract is in stone and must be followed to a T as much as can be.
3. With such a large project deal with it in phases if possible and only charge/estimate one phase at a time. If you make an overall project estimate make it very clear that the accuracy could be off by up to 30%.
4. If specs are unclear or unfinished a deadline and a cost cannot be clear. No exceptions.
5. When building a software package for a particular company that can be reused pad your quote with extra time.

Back to the question of what is to be done. Well, there isn't much that can be done. I've went back and forth with the client. I've proved my dedication to the completion of the project. Generally I would give a partial refund but because the project is so far over budget it's not a good move. So, all I can do is look over the things that need to be finished and complete the tasks that have the most user impact for the least cost first. After that I need to finish the less important tasks or tasks that have a high cost and low benefit. After that I have to hope that my friendship with the client is strong enough to make up for the issues we have had.

Some of you may say "Will, you so fucked that up." But really, I am not the only responsible party. I talked to the client's wife, who also works for him, and she understands that part of the reason we are behind on the project is also because of additions and changes. So, even if my client doesn't get it at least his wife knows what's up and someone sees the effort I have put in.

Will I salvage this client? Yes, probably. I'm 90% sure. Before this year we had a sketchy reputation with some of our clients but we completely changed the way we do things, the technologies we use and hired people to make up for our lack of ability to complete work. We did a complete 360 and fulfilled my vision of what I wanted the business to be like. This client is one of the last clients from that sketchy past before we did our turn around and I hope to really help them fulfill every vision they have of their company through their website.

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Hello,
    I'm writing to inform you I will no longer be shopping at Circuit City any more. I will be driving up the road to go to Best Buy. I've been a Circuit City customer for years and have come to the sad conclusion that you do not care about your customers that much. Let me inform you why I have made this decision.
   At around 5:30pm on August 22nd I visited a Circuit City in Rivergate, TN, outside of Nashville. I was stopping in on my weekly trip in to the store to look for some new music, some software and browse your wonderful selection of items. Before I went in the store I parked 4 rows from the front of the store. I rolled up my windows, locked my door and placed my laptop case on the floor board of the passenger side of my car. I felt relatively safe in this area and figured I would only be in the store at tops 20 minutes. I went in the store and browsed for a while and ended up buying a few small items. When I left the store I walked out to find my passenger side window was broken and my $1200 laptop had been stolen with much of my business information. I'm the CEO of a local software development company. I was pretty confused. So, I asked one of the clerks if there were any cameras outside. He said, "No, there are plenty inside but none outside.". He was generally not very helpful and only aided me with a phone to call the police. I'm wondering if it is commonplace to have a large electronics store and not have one single camera outside to protect your customers. So, after I had to wait 3 hours for the Nashville Metro Police to show up so I could file a report (missing an important meeting that evening) I drove up the road to Best Buy. I found that Best Buy has one omni-directional camera watching their parking lot.
   So, it seems had I been shopping for my goods at Best Buy I would have been at least somewhat protected. I think it is absolutely absurd you can't put one camera outside to protect your customers. Not only will I not shop at Circuit City again, I will tell every person I know about this and inform them they should make the same decision. Also, I will make mention of this in my blog as well as use any other route I can employ to deter others from making the same mistake. I am aware this is partially my fault for not putting my laptop in the trunk or carrying it in the store. But, this was broad daylight, four rows from the entrance to your building. It's just not right to not have a camera or security patroling the area when seemingly every other large store in the area does. I will forward a copy of this in writing to your corporate office and deliver a copy to the store manager.

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Every CEO and/or Business Owner must have these things to be a success.

• Great Organizational Tools - Nothing makes a person more efficient than the proper tools & software. Anything that helps you remember, cuts back on time spent on mundane tasks, or keeps you in touch with the rest of the world is a great thing. Always be on the lookout for better tools and software because these things give you the ability to adapt to changing circumstances quicker. I don't even mean get the latest gadgets. You could end up spending a lot of money getting the next best gadget. My favorite organizational tools are the cork boards and dry erase board as well as my dry erase calendar. When I'm in my office I'm always a head glance away from my company's status. Don't get stuck in using a tool either… be open to investigating new tools, always.
• Excellent Social Skills - Social skills are very important. You are the face of your business and you must present a face that is inviting and happy to be around others. Business is not about money, talent or hard work. It's about people. You may say… "In my business I don't have to deal with people because we produce Widgets and sell them online"… really? Okay, if you have no vendors which you deal with, no contact with customers and no employees then you can have terrible social skills. In just about all businesses you are one conversation from a better deal with a vendor, an undiscovered talent and a group of new customers. If you don't have people skills and you want to be in business then get out now, develop your people skills or find someone willing to partner with you that has these skills. You must not only have the ability but the desire to deal with people. Every person is a branch to your network and thus a path for possible growth, professionally and personally.
• An Attitude That Exudes Assurance & Positivity -  I am almost certain this is what has kept me in business this long. I'm sure like I'm sure that everything is positive and headed in the right direction. Even when I'm not, very few people know. I'm not saying be ignorant to reality. I'm saying don't sulk, don't worry, don't show weakness or disgust. You almost have to be a zealot about your business to succeed. Speak nothing negative and show nothing negative. If you have a problem approach it in a way to look for a practical path away from your undesired result but do your best to not get emotional about problems. It tends to make them worse. You must have zen like dedication and be as flexible as the water around the rocks. Keep moving. Don't let anything get you down. When you lose your ability to adapt you are lost.
• Wise Advisors - Surround yourself with people who have knowledge, like you and are interested in your well being. Wise advisors cost time, energy and at times money. Be willing to sacrifice for these people. Approach it as a friendship and also a business deal. Friendships are mutually benefitial arrangements to share time, knowledge and resources between people which make each individual in the friendship stronger than they would be on their own. I know it sounds cold when put like that but it's the truth. I'm probably the best friend you'll ever know. Do not ever put a friend out of your life completely if you can help it. Do your best to stay in contact, send cards if you can, send emails… do something. Friends are your best natural resources and will many times be more useful than paid advisors. Plus, your next lead, your next thing that makes your business even better could be from a friend of a friend.
• Knowing The Thinnest Line - I'm a very honest and blunt person. However, there are times in business where giving every bit of information to a customer, an employee or a vendor can be a thing that will get you in to more trouble than it's worth. Lying is a terrible thing… avoid it like the plague. However, choose your words carefully. I tend to not speak in absolutes and always remember the instances in which I do speak in absolutes in order to not tell lies. If you are unsure about something be careful about telling people you are sure. Learn to exude confidence without using certainties. There is a very thin line between a lie and the truth. In the end it's really about what you are comfortable saying and doing but lying will get you in more trouble than it's worth and remember that telling someone you are certain about something and having it not be correct due to unforseen circumstances is as bad as lying in most cases. Good politicians know the line pretty well and understand how thin it is. Keep records and notes about all full or semi-business related conversations if at all possible. Deliver the facts you are sure of, show off the positives and don't declare all of what can be percieved as negative, unless asked. One caveat, sometiems drop a small negative without being asked as it may deter getting in to worse negatives, if they exist. Be genuine, be real, be honest but understand politics even if you don't like politics. You can't avoid it completely.

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