Tag Archives: “entrepreneurship”
Business is Picking Up, Somewhat
Consultative Sales
So yesterday I get contacted by a potential client about some info I had sent him regarding developing a certain website for him. He needed template coding and a backend system to manage the site, except he didn’t really know where to start. So I suggested a solution and patiently described how it would benefit him and why it would save him money. Because I answered so many of his questions without ever pressuring him into hiring me, I got the job.
My Beautiful New Monitor and Web Design
Samsung 940Be
I recently purchased a Samsung 940Be which is a 19-inch LCD monitor. Thanks to the falling prices of LCD monitors and Newegg’s low prices, I got a really good deal. I was originally going to wait until the holiday season, but some time in the last couple of months, there was significant price drop. As with all my electronics/computer purchases, I did a lot of research online comparing features and reading reviews. Man, I LOVE this thing. The viewable space is HUGE and it is so BRIGHT. So much more working space, it makes my web development work much easier too.
Parallel Processing
I must say that the one thing Cornell has endowed me with is the ability to multitask. The ability to handle several different tasks and responsibilities at any given time. I’ve mentioned this before but my schedule this semester is pretty light. The one class, Electronic Commerce, that I thought would be interesting and informational turned out pretty disappointing. It’s a 600-level graduate course in the Cornell business school too. I’m not learning anything I didn’t already know and the course leans more towards the technical side and I was expecting a strategy related course.
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.
Website Coming Along
The website for my web services business is really coming along. This is by far the most professional looking site I’ve ever developed. I’ve also made it Firefox and IE cross-browser compatible (the site looks identical in both browsers).
So things are rolling. I even developed a little “wizard” that will ask a prospective customer a few questions and determine which web hosting plan is best for them. This alone took me about 2 days because I had to map out an entire decision tree based on people’s possible answers and then put it into PHP code.
Quiet Friday Night
I overslept this morning and accidentally skipped the only class I have today. I went to bed too late last night and had trouble getting up this morning. I unwittingly turned off my alarm clock in my morning stupor (instead of hitting snooze). I am definitely not a morning person. I’m very groggy for about 10 minutes after getting up.
Anyway, I hit the gym shortly afterward with 2 friends. Was in there for about 2 hours. Doesn’t sound as intense as it seems - we were taking longer breaks between sets and chatting. Then we had lunch for another 2 hours, just basically chatting about various things. We then wanted to play basketball, called up a bunch of people, but found out there was no place available to play.