Self Employment
What I’ve Been Up To (It’s Been Awhile)
Final Semester Winding Down
I have a paper due tomorrow and a revision of another paper due Tuesday, and I’m officially done with college work. Graduation is on May 28 and the Cornell era of my life will come to a close. I’m moving back home after graduation mainly because I need time to get my venture(s) off the ground and start generating more significant income. But the more I think about it, I don’t think I’ll be able to stand living at home on a long term basis.
Nothing against my parents, but I really prefer my own private life. At first I was thinking it probably would be okay, but then I remembered parents scrutinize everything you do, or at least mine do, and I probably won’t be able to tolerate that very long after living on my own for 5 years. As for my business, I was originally considering staying in Ithaca for an extra year because I’m initially targeting local businesses in Ithaca. But I don’t think that a physical presence in Ithaca is absolutely necessary.
Search Engine Optimization
Well, I’ve put a lot of effort into search engine optimization of the website for my business. For those familiar with SEO, you may know of something called the sandbox effect where new websites are effectively “ignored” for a certain period of time ranging from 6-9 months, sometimes less, sometimes more. While bigger search engines like Google and Yahoo tend to have longer sandbox terms, MSN seems to have a less strict sandbox.
I was just doing routine checks on certain keywords and my business website is listed on the first page of results on MSN for major keywords related to my market! Needless to say I was quite happy with that, given the fact that the website has only been up for 2 months and it’s now on the first page of the MSN search engine result pages (SERPs) for keywords I’ve targeted.
Nuts and Cabbages
So I filled out an online application for a HSBC business checking account about a week and a half ago thinking that would be it. The online application asked for a decent amount of information about my business. I figured they’d process it, then ask me to send in some documents. Instead, 2 days ago I got this thick application packet that I have to fill out with information I already submitted. Not only that, there are 2 questionnaires that are pretty repetitive (both ask the same questions). I’ve filled out most of it and I have to photocopy something; I’ll be sending it out in the next 2 days. I don’t know but if you ask me, asking for the same information 3 times in 2 different mediums seems pretty inefficient. I guess this is why consultants have jobs.
I Wish I Had $20,000
I wish I had $20,000. Then I could have a good size marketing budget to really jump start my business. But instead I have to slowly bootstrap my way through. Considering this is my first time starting my own official business (not some side project) I’m relatively risk averse. That’s why I don’t want to borrow large amounts of money if there’s a chance I’m not able to pay it back. If I had $20,000 right now I’d spend a quarter of that on promotional activities and the rest to buy up some promising small web hosts out there. There are so many tiny web host owners that for one reason or another cannot continue running the business (not because the business is doing badly). I see these small hosts with good growth opportunities but I have no cash to pony up to acquire them.
More Information About the Launch of My Business
This is more like an appendix to my previous post.
I had originally intended on launching my business sometime in late September. But it is now early November and the business has not launched. Some of my friends and other associates I’ve described my venture to have been wondering why my business hasn’t gone live.
My Business, It’s Official
Well I’ve finally gotten my business venture officially registered as a New York State LLC so now I’m the owner of my own company. Admittedly, I have no clients yet, but I’m working on it ;-). I’ve been putting off work getting the business launched during the past month for various reasons, but I’m moving along again at full speed. I just spent the entire night (5 hours or so) thinking about and reworking the website to present information about my services differently and also changing some prices.