Profit has been extremely modest so far, but that’s unsurprising–I know the bulk of my success is dependent on having a broader portfolio, which brings greater exposure and more opportunities for juried shows and exhibitions. For now, though, I think I’m doing alright.

Thanks for this blog, by the way. I just stumbled on it tonight, and I’ve found it quite engaging.

I was a software developer and software project manager for quite a long time but has always thought of starting my own business. Couple of months ago the company where I worked bankrupted and I got unemployed. I decided that it was a great time to start by myself and the first step I made was to create my own blog.

I still haven’t decided clearly where to go to. I want to write software, I want to consult and teach project management, I want to write a book and I want to have a Web 2.0 business.

I still don’t have a clear business plan because I have too many ideas and I don’t know which one to start with. But while I am thinking I write in my blog and I am creating new contacts, which I think is important and probably can help me find my way.

I like your blog and have found some great ideas here.
Thanks!

Mike

Yes, we are profitable and we’ve been that way for the past five years, though we’ve had a few rough spots. I never really planned to start a business, and I don’t know if I could have planned it. As with many things in my life, it kind of just happened naturally, as an outgrowth of the work I was doing. I had already started up productions for other studios, so I knew the drill. I landed a big production and decided to do it for myself this time around instead of someone else. So, the next thing I knew, I was renting space, hiring animators, and learning all about payroll, cash flow, and all the other things it takes to run a business. Since then, we’ve expanded and contracted a few times, and while that first contraction was painful, I’ve learned that it’s just part of the natural cycle of the business. It’s not about how big/small we are at any point in time, it’s about having fun doing good work.

Your blog is great, btw…

Thanks for all your wonderful advice on life. I get a lot of value from your blog!

Great question. As many of your other readers I have started a business via the personal blog platform. You know my site oh too well, since you are one of my favorite guest posters at www.alexshalman.com/blog -

In the future I plan to own a chain of Dental offices. Dentistry is what I’m currently going to school for, and from knowing me you should know that I like to be my own boss =)

I am also a writer and working hard on getting published, sending articles and short stories to children’s magazines.

My husband and I are currently working on a website for writers that I don’t really want to say much about yet, since it’s still fresh, it’s a new idea, and I’m really not sure when we’re going to launch it. I will test it for a couple of months first and then we’ll see.

Also I’m working on a book that I’m hoping to self publish within a year. Keeping busy.

Take care,

Ute

Anyway, my business is not very profitable so far. We have a website but I don’t even know how to get it on the search engines. Wish there was an easy way as I do not have time to research all the web stuff I need to know. I kept your post on home businesses and I am trying to follow the links and learn a little at a time.

I have lost a lot of income in this switch but I think, if we can hang on, that standing up for what is right will prove the best choice. Thanks for your insights!

My wife and I are looking to turn our farm into a business selling fruits, veggies, and eggs. We have been researching ways of living “green” without getting too crazy. I don’t think everything has to be Organic, to be better for you. We want to prove that without paying someone money to be called organic.

For instance we will worm farm to keep food wastes from being thrown out in the trash, as well as sell the worms for bait, or to other farmers. Worm Castings are an awsome fertilizer. My wife want to keep bees, and rent them out to other farmers, and honey makes a tidy profit.

Along with all this, having chickens, sheep, and goats will add to the profitablitiy of the farm.

I also make furniture and cabinets in the shaker style, and want to someday turn that into a profit.

We know it won’t be easy, but we are turning the TV off, and concentrating on doing something productive.

I will keep my job because of the health bennies, and a sweet retirement plan so that by 55 I can retire, and work on my own little peice of planet earth.

Thanks

Dameyon

The G2 system has been incrementally developed and refined through each client project– the best of the new code rolled back into the core toolkit– which is then used in the next new project. This has allowed me to basically have an R&D cycle that began when I got out of college 9 years ago and continues today. As you can imagine, then, the system is extremely robust, and though it is written in the red-headed stepchild of web app languages, that factor is irrelevant to most of the customers who most benefit from the functionality and usefulness of the software.

The business, such as it is, however, is not something you might start if you actually had a mind to make lots of money really quickly. Though it seems today I am on the cusp of overcoming the Godinesque “Dip” and moving into actual profit-and-goal-driven territory with my first employee, it has been a long row to hoe. My modest paycheck kept things paid and the company has bought me plenty of fun toys, but I have completely lost track of what it must be like to come into work at 9 and leave at 5 or 6.

Had I planned it all out in advance I probably would have kept collecting a regular paycheck– but I was essentially forced into being an entrepreneur because of the sad state of affairs born from my particular dot-com-trainwreck experience. This company decided that it was more important to play favorites with the employees who went to the proper church rather than the competent ones, and so I was the last one out the door in the web development group as I was not one of the annointed, and web dev was not one of the favorite scopes of business. After the clients began to get concerned, I offered my services as a contractor to pick up the same work I had put down as an employee just days earlier. Had I not found myself in that situation, I’m sure I would be yet another salaryman somewhere and not the brave-faced capitalist everybody seems to think I am.

The real hat trick has been to turn this from a situation that demanded a long string of reactive decisions into a series of proactive actions that take what I began with and turn it into something that does more than just eek by with the bills. And me, with an art degree and no experience when I began. I like to tell people that every right thing I do is the product of me failing that same thing several different ways in the past. I know a lot more than I did when I started, but the tuition is a doozy and I’m ready to start cashing in on the prestige of experience. That’s my current challenge… all the while providing the same level of service and project work to paying clients. It’s a difficult job when you are bootstrapping through it and have nobody but yourself to depend upon in the office.

I’m now setting up www.worldclasssupplychain.com which is aimed at corporations.

The wife continues to be successful with www.fitwatch.com and I’m fortunate to have her as a guiding light for doing business on the Internet.

Best

Terry