It seems like I never really START anything on my own.
I'm usually prompted by someone or something. You know, that "you really oughta do this" voice that most of us have in our lives.
This time, it was my friend, Sheri.
She watched me, for three years, grow increasingly busy with my freelance design business. She saw my workload that grew from a few hours a day to daily busy, to getting up at 4am to meet deadlines. She watched me try to juggle workload, kids, volunteering... and never have a day to relax without fretting that I was giving up "billable time."
"You need an intern," she said. "Let's visit the Business Incubator," she suggested.
Before I knew it, I was being encouraged by Denise at the TECenter to become a client there, to have an office, and to grow my business from a job to a company. Will from the TECenter described my life with great accuracy when he said "you're in the Whitewater (referring to the book, "Predictable Success"). You're overwhelmed with keeping up with the business you've created. You've created a job for yourself, which is great. But what you want to do is create a company, and your job will become running the business."
So I signed up for the Sprint class at the TECenter, and learned about the Lean Startup model, the Business Model Canvas, and the need for crafting my product to fit the needs of the market. I'm pretty sure I was then DROWNING in Whitewater, trying to complete the required reading and hold the recommended customer interviews.
My biggest lessons from the class:
I'm great at starting things, and not so great at finishing them. So I make no promises about the regularity of entries or whether they'll ever get published. But if they do, you can probably thank Sheri.
I'm usually prompted by someone or something. You know, that "you really oughta do this" voice that most of us have in our lives.
This time, it was my friend, Sheri.
She watched me, for three years, grow increasingly busy with my freelance design business. She saw my workload that grew from a few hours a day to daily busy, to getting up at 4am to meet deadlines. She watched me try to juggle workload, kids, volunteering... and never have a day to relax without fretting that I was giving up "billable time."
"You need an intern," she said. "Let's visit the Business Incubator," she suggested.
Before I knew it, I was being encouraged by Denise at the TECenter to become a client there, to have an office, and to grow my business from a job to a company. Will from the TECenter described my life with great accuracy when he said "you're in the Whitewater (referring to the book, "Predictable Success"). You're overwhelmed with keeping up with the business you've created. You've created a job for yourself, which is great. But what you want to do is create a company, and your job will become running the business."
So I signed up for the Sprint class at the TECenter, and learned about the Lean Startup model, the Business Model Canvas, and the need for crafting my product to fit the needs of the market. I'm pretty sure I was then DROWNING in Whitewater, trying to complete the required reading and hold the recommended customer interviews.
My biggest lessons from the class:
- get to know your customer first, then develop your "product" to accurately match their needs
- start with WHY (thank you, Simon Sinek) - once I define WHY I'm in business, it will be easier to attract the kinds of employees who will identify with that WHY and stick with the job out of loyalty
- the WHY will also drive customer loyalty
I'm great at starting things, and not so great at finishing them. So I make no promises about the regularity of entries or whether they'll ever get published. But if they do, you can probably thank Sheri.
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