Lost In Madison

Wow I guess you can really say I have indeed fell of the interwebz lately! I have been super busy and honestly am not sure it will slow down for a little longer. Last most of you knew I/we (at work) had been gearing up for a meeting with a national product manufacturing company regarding an existing product of ours, and a new product we were just on the verge of launching. That was back on the 20th of this month. The meeting was awesome! In fact it was a slam dunk on our part. (Thanks for asking) According to the people we were presenting our products to they want them NOW, that is…. if they had anything to say about actually making the final decision within their company that is.

Along this interesting journey time and time again we have been on the verge of “doing something” with several national companies. Every time the deal either seems a bit off, the corporate wheel spun to slow, or we had a feeling we could do better ourselves. This last meeting was no exception. At some point quite a while back we stopped getting awestruck by these companies and realized that they are quite a bit like us, with the exception of them having much deeper pockets than us. This has forced us to look at every meeting and talk from every possible angle we could.

While our meeting didn’t end quite the way we anticipated I can honestly say we came out of it more business savvy and with some very important information. The type of information you’re not supposed to get from another company, EVER (I will just leave it at that). We had already gone into this meeting with the foresight that if nothing came of it we were moving forward with our second product still and immediately.

For the last two weeks we have been doing just that, moving forward with urgency. We have officially contacted independent sales reps in ALL the territories that we were lacking representation roughly 33 states, and have begun to secure these independent sales rep companies to introduce our first product to the rest of the nation. We have also moved our second product from prototype to production and have begun to market it in the upper Midwest region starting this week. The sales reps that we are working on gathering now will get the second product somewhere around October 1st (so we have time to work out things in a controlled manner in our local area first). This push has been from our whole company (all three of us LOL) and I would be lying if I said I worked harder than anyone else on my team. All of us have put massive amounts of time, work and experience into the last month in each of our respective areas of expertise.

During this time two of us have also been going about our daily business with our other company and another person (our job foreman). Yes there is two companies here and four people total. The owner and I work for/on both companies each day, it just depends on what hat it is time to wear at the time. The other two guys are only working for one of the companies, but we need them both as their roles are not even close to the same.

About three years ago I began to write a custom web based client management and invoicing software for both companies. While the software is the same in some areas it has massive differences in others. So when I am not working on other stuff I am always working on improving this software for both companies. Some, quite a bit of this happens after hours.

I also have been doing web design on the side for a while as a hobby company, and while I currently do not have any clients I am working on right now, I have managed to “donate” some of my time in a few areas. Some of the time needed has been minor and some has been more involved, but it is something I enjoy doing so it’s not bad.

In the last month I have managed to remove almost all of my free time from my life. My typical weekly schedule right now goes something like this (don’t forget to add in random times for food and travel):

Monday/Wednesday/Friday = Work 8am-5/6pm, Go for a run about 2.5miles 6/7pm-7:30/8:30pm, Come home shower and sit back down to program/work on whatever is urgent until around midnight/1am. Bed.

Tuesday = Work 8am-5/6pm, Come home sit back down to donate time or program/work on whatever is urgent until around midnight/1am. Bed.

Thursday = Work 8am-5/6pm, Family campfire night (relax) till around 9/10pm, Come home sit back down to donate time or program/work on whatever is urgent until around 1/2am. Bed.

Saturday = SLEEP, Clean my house, do laundry, catch up on chores, sit back down to donate time or program/work on whatever is urgent until around 1/2am. Bed.

Sunday = Take mom to church, come home around 1pm, TRY TO DO NOTHING IF POSSIBLE, but somehow I eventually end up program/work on whatever is urgent until around 11pm. Bed.

What I have learned this month:
-How to file a provisional patent.
-Some companies are not as big as they appear to be.
-The corporate wheel is slow (ok I have known this but it’s just been reinforced).
-Sometimes you can do it better than someone else, sometimes you can’t.
-Small business is really fun, I am not joking, this is really cool and I am enjoying every step.
-It is possible to do 100 things at once, and do them well.
-Just when you think you can’t do anymore, your forced to and you realize you can.

I am far from a business guru or any of that, what I am is some random guy in a position within a company (technically two) that is having fun doing what I do. I have an awesome group of guys around me that I work with and there is no way I would be able to do my job(s) without them.

Ohh yeah, in my free time I am the family tech support guy and work on computers, I also do a funny dance when people toss change at me…

Sorry so long, but this is my answer to “what have you been up to lately…”