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I pass this Hollywood Video every time I leave my house to take my son to school in the morning. Notice something special? Yes, it's closing. Why? Redbox, Hulu, iTunes, On Demand, Netflix, etc... The business model is dead and/or dying quickly.

I do admit some nostalgia about going to the video store as a kid with my father and wondering if the latest and greatest movie or game would be available. My anticipation would be so deep when I entered the doors of the video store. Many times I would find out that someone else had rented it or that my information was wrong and it wasn't quite out yet. Rarely do I feel the same way about that because why would I?

It costs me a dollar to rent from Redbox and I don't need membership... then if I'm obscenely late I just end up owning the movie. My debit/credit card is my membership so I don't fill out anything or deal with people. Netflix also is a great model... I just pay $x a month and I can get two movies and send them back and get new ones whenever I want. In that model there is no late fees and I can easily manage my account online. Netflix also offers streaming through it's website for many movies so I don't even have to wait on some things. I have an AppleTV so I can just pick what movie I want and the rental downloads and I watch it instantly and it charges me through iTunes. Also, through my cable company I have On Demand where I can just order any movie I want and it's charged to my cable bill. So, other methods are so convenient or cheaper that I never would think of joining a movie store.

As this vestige of the 20th century dies I just want to say "Good riddance!". I'm feel very badly for all those who will lose jobs because of it but as things that made sense in the 20th century die off new things will take their place. It's easier than ever to start your own business with almost no investment. When you fold up your 20th century mindset and start shrugging off that antiquated way of thinking that still holds many of us a wage slave or a slave to old patterns with no seeming logic then you will feel that much better about joining the rest of us in a century of convenience and pragmatic decisions. I will be the first to welcome you!

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. 

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.

I’ve been having extensive talks with my friends about the value of networking. This article will jump around a bit because some of it is connected to other thoughts I’m having right now. But I’ll try to bring it full circle.

It seems obvious to me and I’m sure many others but there are still a lot of people who don’t understand the value or don’t practice networking to add value to their life. It’s difficult to not do some networking if you interract with other people. Life is, in part, a sum of connections we create with people. Those connections create opportunity and in turn give opportunity. You can’t see networking as one sided. You must be willing to be of value and help connect people where there is a need in order to gain from networking. I look at every relationship as an opportunity to help others and as an opportunity to be helped. This isn’t just for business as it also applies to my personal life. I use it when I’m dating or meeting new friends as well as when I’m working on business deals. Personally or professionally, I don’t really see the distinction except in approach. I have good friends who I do business with and good business people who I consider friends. Most people don’t like crossing this line but I consider that nonsense. I love doing business with people I’m friends with and the communication is much easier in those instances. But I could go in to depth on that with another article.

Opportunity can only be created through personal and professional connections. Loose connections will provide more value than strong connections when it comes to networking and building opportunity. The reason for this is that all the people that are tight with you in your circle already know most of the opportunities that you do. However, this is not always the case. But any time you open yourself up to a new group or run in a new circle of people you are gaining access to opportunity and in turn they are gaining access to your friends and all you know (if you are doing this correctly). Giving is the essential key to receiving. It has been my philosophy for some time that if you want to receive something in your life give freely of that thing and abundance will be your result. This is contrary to the thinking of some because the conventional thought is towards hoarding something that you do not have much of. However, that has never lead to success in my own life nor the lives of many I have noticed. There is always enough of whatever you have to be able to give something, even if it’s only a nickel to the hungry man on the corner. Also, love and appriciation are free and feed the soul. If you have nothing you have a kind word and a smile and this will enhance the day of others. Giving that can enhance your day as well.

Oh, so back to this networking thing (: Now that I’m single and have the luck of having people to help me with my son (so I have a bit more time on my hands) I have been expanding my network a great deal to those types of people that I would like to associate with. Unfortunately in my last relationship I was limited to time due to my investment in that relationship and also was limited to the connections I could build with females. I tend to not build many new friendships with females when I’m in a relationship unless my girlfriend is good friends with the female in question. For me this is practical because I don’t like any ambiguity when I’m in a relationship. However, I may change my stance on this for future relationships. It’s kind of out dated and I have much more self control than I did years ago when I setup this rule. Further, I’ve noticed that many women are far better connectors than men. They are more willing to introduce you to their friends and talk more openly about relationships with others.

Lastly, be willing to say hi, smile and shake someone’s hand. Step out of your bubble and touch someone. Be willing to be touched. Find personal and professional interests you have in common. Also find things that you may not have in common but may be interesting nonetheless. Conversation is a freestyle dance of sorts and you must feel out when to lead and feel out when to be lead. Be careful about crude, offensive or disgusting topics… it can be pretty crucial to read your audience and make sure you don’t make a fool of yourself. But don’t worry, everybody makes mistakes now and then. Learn from it when you do and keep it moving. Remember, no amount of genius has been acquired with the willingness to fail.

Dear Open Source Developers,

I’ve lived in Nashville for over four years now and for a good while I’ve been thinking about what my contribution can be to Nashville as a developer. Nashville is a very heavy closed source business environment and has been for some time from what I can tell and what other people tell me. Now, my company and myself are very much in to Ruby and Ruby on Rails. But, we use many of the same open source technologies to deploy and run our software on as all open source developers do. It seems instead of the fighting between the different open source languages and the different platforms we could find some way to meet in the middle and create more opportunities for all of us.

What I’m discussing is creating an open source marketing & communication movement that hasn’t been a huge success in the past. It can and will take place here in Nashville. Marcus Whitney, of the Enterprise LAMP group has lead the charge and I have followed to work on uniting the Ruby community locally under the Enterprise LAMP group (Nashville Ruby Group). There are still some people I haven’t gotten to be a part of the movement and who strongly disagree with my approach but I feel strongly that is necessary. Many Ruby programmers get caught up in detail that the ‘P’ in LAMP doesn’t represent Ruby. It represents PHP, Perl and Python as choices. That is currently true but there is no reason that Ruby shouldn’t take it’s rightful place in that acronym (even without the ‘R’ in place of ‘P’). Marcus and his group has asked us to participate and we should do what we can in this area because it will only increase our impact and range as Ruby developers.

There have been many efforts in the past by companies such as IBM that adopt and market open source technologies. But we as developers and those who have financial interest in open source technologies should also be marketing these technologies in one concerted effort. Even at the smallest level of one contractor or employee who earns money from development using these tools should be responsible for it’s promotion in the business and development world.

I would like to put a call out to all open source developers to become a part of this movement and help us with whatever resources you can. If you can help financially you can do that, if you can help with knowledge please do that or if you can help by spreading the word to other open source developers that’s awesome too. We all benefit from the progression and understanding of these technologies as a whole. We need to raise the bar and speak in a unified voice. There is a way to be unique and love your own open source choice technology such as Ruby but then make sure you are participating in the open source community as a whole. Together we all benefit and if we can make this work in Nashville we can make it work anywhere.

Lastly, here in Nashville, Marcus and his group has managed to get the PHP, Perl, Ruby & Python developer communities involved under the umbrella of the Enterprise LAMP movement. There is a big conference coming to Nashville in November called the "Big LAMP Camp". Check out the website… there are some big names coming and this is our time to unite and make a push locally.

Thanks,

Will Bridges

CEO / Cogwise Software LLC

http://www.cogwisesoftware.com

After writing the last article and some serious thought as well as some conversation about Nashville I decided to take on a new goal. While I still feel that Nashville is not my favorite place in the world I do feel that it would be smart of me to stay here and do what I could to make it better. At least for another couple years. I am working on building an organization that I feel will be a driving force behind the change I want to make in Nashville. Any goal I have set my true effort behind and have refused to let myself down on I have been successful at. So, I feel that I can put the energy behind this to make it something that seeds change in Nashville for the better.

My goals for this new organization are to:

• Attract outside investment in the local business and technology community.


• Foster cooperation between technology businesses in Nashville.


• Attract technology talent to Nashville.


• Create a more conducive environment for growth in the technology sector.


• Achieve diversity in the technology market in Nashville.


• Provide local technology entrepreneurs with tools and environment they need to innovate.


• Give local businesses an idea of what is possible through the application of technology.


• Foster the development of user groups, conferences and discussion around technology.

In the end to get more and attract more we have to be more and through cooperation we can make all of us more than what we were yesterday. The name of the organization I’m building is the "Lion Council". I picked the lion because it’s a majestic animal, but also social and protective of their claimed area. Further, Lion Council was easy to remember and the domain was available.

I still may not decide to stay here and raise my son here for other reasons. Nashville is more conservative than I would like and the climate is not my cup of tea. Those are two things I doubt that I can have any serious impact on.

Let me preface by saying that I love Nashville. I read this article about Luke Kanies leaving Nashville for Portland. I have considered moving back to Portland as well. The only reason I haven’t, is that my girlfriend is somewhat hesitant to it. We have a son together and live just outside of Nashville, in Hendersonville. The main reason I’ve wanted to leave is I feel socially estranged in Nashville. It’s been almost impossible to build any good group of friends with common interests. The parties I’ve thrown (with free alcohol, music and plenty of space) have had about a 30-50% rate of people actually showing up. That’s around 15-25 people, which is good but I keep inviting the same people (who seem to be friends) and they keep not showing up. If you are one of those people there are many of you that have valid excuses and that’s cool as I’m probably not mad at you or I would have told you. But a friendship has to go both ways. If I show up when you request my presence and I can never count on you to call me out of the blue and ask me what/how I’m doing or show up when requested then there is a problem. Maybe the problem is I’m not important enough )-: But people in Portland never made me feel like that. I would get calls from people out of the blue on a regular basis and I still have contact with people in Portland even though I haven’t lived there in 7 years. I visited last year and it was like I never left. Friends came together and welcomed me back.

I’m pretty sure it isn’t because people are assholes here in Nashville. Generally people feel (IMHO) self-absorbed, conservative and don’t go out of their way to contact you. But they are very friendly in person and talk up how much they enjoy your company. Then you never hear from them again. I’ve met people I really liked and there are couple people who I consider good acquaintances  who I hope will eventually become friends. It just seems like a lot more work that I even had to put in to the effort in Portland, Oregon.

The tech community here as I said on my comments on the other post is not very great. I have put some considerable effort to help but it has not been returned and I have been mostly ignored when I put in effort which is discouraging to say the least. The NASHDL group is okay… and I have people within there that I don’t want to offend but I have had a lot of people tell me they felt uncomfortable going there and it’s not very inviting. I understand what they mean to some degree.

Marcus Whitney went to great effort to create user groups and encourage the local development community. Others that have encouraged the community in one way or another are Nick Holland (as previously mentioned in another article), Jackson Miller, Ted & John Chapin and Dave Delaney. There are others but I’m not as well connected as some so these are the few I know of. Many others keep to themselves and I feel this is due to some of the resistance I have mentioned. I have invested financially once with meager but reasonable returns and invested with my time/effort twice only to be outright ignored and sidelined. I’m an entrepreneur and don’t have time to be bothered developing things and investing in things that are a waste of my talents and energy. As far as that goes it would be difficult to get me to start anything by myself. I want to but I’ve seen how that goes and the only way I will do anything is if I can help someone who already has "the wind underneath their wings".

My business has not survived or thrived due to Tennessee but generally in spite of location. The only thing good about this location for my business has been the cost of living and the outside perception by our clients in more expensive areas of the world. We have been able to give a perception of cost effective due our location in part. There have been some relationships I have built recently that have been helpful for my business and my knowledge of business but that has been a long time coming. The good news is it doesn’t just apply to the tech community in Nashville. I have dealt with other industries in Nashville for my research on a website we are building. Seems they are all about the same way. They are not very trusting, have a secluded and competitive mentality, conservative and even combative when it comes to business. There’s a strong mentality that there is only just enough to go around and we must fight for the scraps of opportunity. However, if we would all open up a bit, lighten up a bit and relax we would find a world of opportunity at our feet. I operate my business as if there is enough to go around and we can all build more opportunity for ourselves through the sharing of knowledge and general cooperation. I hope that we are a beacon for others who want to operate this way.

Let me be clear. I don’t want to complain and just be part of the problem but I do want to feel free to state my observations from 4 years in this city. I’m willing to be a part of any proposed solution that people may have that has any chance worth of working or adding to the solution. My memories here have been a good part of my life that I love. I really came in to my own here and my son was born here. I would like this to be a place I would be proud to raise him and be proud to operate my business as it grows but so far I’m not convinced. I see some awesome efforts on the part of my colleagues and I hope they snowball in to the community becoming super awesome.

Here in Nashville on the last Thursday of every month the interactive development firm Centresource throws a mixer with good beer and better company. We always see the best and brightest new media professionals and entrepreneurs at these mixers. I’ve been to most of them. They started throwing them at the beginning of this year. During which they give out some schwag (Sivery Beans and Golden Kraut). I, uh… should know what these are because I’ve been so many times but it always escapes me. There’s always some type of interactive contest or drawing to get the much sought after items. Basically, they are two cans of food with some very symbolic meaning but it adds some fun and humor to the event and usually just about the time you have a buzz. Nick (Nicholas Holland) could tell it better than I could. The free beer and wine is definately an awesome touch.

The group of people at Centresource are really good. I consider Nick a friend and have had several conversations with them about their development work. They seem a very qualified group of developers. They primarily develop in PHP but put together awesome designs and other media as well. The best thing about them is they foster the development of interactive media Nashville and bring the community together. They have sponsored many of the tech/new media events in Nashville and we should all be grateful for that. I have mentioned before that sponsoring tech events doesn’t get you a whole lot of new work (IMHO) but does increase your position within the community, beneifts the local community, can attract talent and is very good for the image of a company. So, they should be praised for what I would consider an investment in the development community in Nashville.

Lastly, to anyone considering on coming out to the Centresource mixer I would say it’s a good idea. There are a lot of good contacts to be met out there and consider your presence your own small investment in the Nashville Tech Community. The address is 1313 4th Avenue North in Nashville and it usually starts at about 5pm. If you come out this Thursday, I’ll be there.

The Challenge

We started our company, Cogwise Software, the same month the market started crashing last year (September, 2008). We lost a huge deal we were working on that month because of the crash. After that all we had was the clients I had from our prior company and a couple clients from my partner’s company. So, things seemed impossible. It seemed like many times we were fighting to swim upstream and many times we would hit some kind of barrier. Every marketing method we tried was expensive and we seemed to keep missing the mark. Our competition was willing to tell customers whatever they wanted to hear and give them whatever price they wanted to get a few bucks in their pocket and we weren’t willing to match bids that were too low or lie to potential clients in order to get work. So, we suffered through barely getting enough work to eat. We also had no loans or capital so we were working off of what we could get in as quickly as we could get it in. Many times we would be late paying contractors or other bills. Starting a business in one of the worst recessions in American history was not easy nor fun but it did make us stronger and smarter because we were willing to bet it all.

 

Dragging Knuckles

Initially, we tried many of the ways we knew to get leads and most of them didn’t work in this economy. Around the same time I had a partnership with another company, who was feeding us leads, dry up. They no longer could feed us leads because they didn’t have any. The comments of many devs at this time were, "if you had clients with active projects you are good but if you don’t then you are in trouble". We had active projects but it was not enough to sustain both my partner and my self. I went in the direction of stopping adwords because it wasn’t working and working on elaborate SEO and content creation. My partner was doing some cross-promotion of niche brands. We were also doing a ton of cold calling to design firms and trying to establish partnerships so we could piggy back their marketing efforts. Lastly we were both working locally to increase our social activities around promoting our brand.

 

What Worked & What Didn’t

Our SEO efforts paid off. It took months for it to work but content creation to link to our brand and social networking was essential to our visibility and brand strength. We now get organic leads in a much higher request rate. Adwords effectiveness was terrible during this time and we were right to cut it off. Seems many of the larger dev firms were spending money hand over fist to knock us off and in the end we couldn’t spend as much for a lead as they could. We did a couple projects that were low profit but they had good ideas so we could get a residual cut of their profits. I don’t recommend that to everyone as many times those kinds of partnerships don’t pay off but they do increase your network and your visibility. Also, working locally to go to networking events and increase our local visibility also seemed to work. Being willing to talk to whoever was willing to listen and not be intimidated by anyone’s success was essential as well. Many people who are successful don’t mind helping you get there if you treat them equally.

 

Evolution

A lot of what we did to survive had to do with being vocal. We put our name out there as much as possible. We spoke as loud as we could about our philosophy to anyone who would hear. We made close friends with our developers and treated them like real people with ambitions and desires and helped stoked the fires that kept them interested in what they did. We always provide as much value to our customers as we can afford to. Many times I didn’t bill for tech or business advisory time. Instead we would make a margin off of our developer’s work. We would always spend a certain amount of time discussing our client’s businesses and how to make them better. We ended up being good business consultants, good marketing consultants and good software developers. Our business turned in to an end to end solution for many of our customers. We evolved to learn the productivity methods like "Getting Things Done" and read books like "Think and Grow Rich". My partner and I compared notes, we talked frequently and we were honest with one another. We didn’t harp on our failures but noted them and strived to be better by advising each other. We were and are grateful for each other. During the hard times we were careful not to blame each other or quit.

 

Now

Work has picked up and I think we are caught in an upswing in the economy along with the fruit of our successful promotional efforts. We have adapted our internal processes and picked the right people to be successful. We have shrugged off negativity and reached high. We set tangible goals for ourselves and our company. There are a ton of qualified people out there who need work and we have sucked up a lot of them recently. Lastly, it sounds corny, but we never gave in and we pressed forward no matter the hardship. We were reflective, honest with ourselves and learned from our failures. This was our roadmap to this point and I feel our future is bright. I hope to write about our company’s awesome progress in the next few months.