The Adventures of Cindy Li

SXSW 2006: Small Businesses

March 11 , 2006

Starting small…

www.startingsmall.info

First Step

Work on your own computer and your own time
What is your legal stance if you are moonlighting on your stuff
In general if you aren’t sure. Talk to your coworker to make sure.

What is your in as a career?
Where do you find yourself in retirement?
Do you hope the company gets bought out?
What do you see?

Questions…

What is your in as a career?
Where do you find yourself in retirement?
Do you hope the company gets bought out?
What do you see?

Veerle Pieters: She started when she was straight from school.

“If you aren’t failing you aren’t trying hard enough”

• Have enough money for a year
• Get things in writing
• It is a learning experience
• Prefect the negotating/establishing what things you could have done better at the end of each project
• Have a post-mortem for each project to figure out what you could do better
• Ask yourself that on a regular basis.
• We just hired our 5th employee what could we do better?
• 9 out of 10 fail within the first year. It will be hard.
• If you spend 1-2 years blood/sweat/tears and end up with no finacial reward will it be worth it?

Buffington: Out of every failure there is a lesson. Timing is important.

How do you get through the first year?

Financing your dreams Establishing something new without support. Boot strapping. Buffington: Boom time. We know how to do internet stuff. We lived out of one apartment like it was a dorm. We didn’t know all the crazy things that happeend. We ate ramen, hosted the DSL, lived there, worked together.  Hired one of the neighbors. The cost was the DSL, and rent. I wouldn’t recommend living off Ramen more than 3 days. ;) Archer: Its not just the fundamentals. Reality is despite the money offers that we hear about, it is hard to get funding. Funding w/clients is the only option businesses have. We tried getting funding and couldn’t. Pieters: Get a loan from the gov’t if you don’t have a job for 3 months. You do a lot of paperwork. It was an attractive offer to apply for the funding. The loan was for the first 5 years you just pay back. $3,000 to put each year to pay back. Finck: free hosting to start your company for the panel

Creative financing, subsidized

Every time you put something on something that isn’t paying you are loosing money because you aren’t billing something.
If you start business you think you can bill those hours. You try to bill 40hrs per week but you won’t be able to. Its a common misconception. When you start your business ask around for the rates to see how you can live off of.

Come up to a compromise so you can live

Archer: Should I use quickbooks? You will have to make a call. Just beecause of time. Be disciplined and make sure you can bill hours and not wasting time on other things.
Pieters: If you are finished you bill someone quickly so that you have money coming in always.

Being known and being understood

Finck: Jack of all trades. Its all about connections on how you get jobs.
Pick your clients carefully.
Fit your biz model and what you want to do. That way you are known for “the guy that does… rock band websites”
It is like a telephone game.

Archer:You’ve got 3 seconds to tell people what your company is/does.
Build and reinforce it

Work/Life Balance

Buffington: Make sure you have a routine so you feel like you are at work
Know when to stop and when to start because you can get caught up in what you are doing.

Pieters: You have to be disciplined. Stopping and starting.
Separate where you work at least have an office. So when you are done.

Archer: you are in a zone for 7 hours then you crank for an hour right?
You focus on the illusion that if you work 70 hours you get 70 hours of work done but you don’t.
Do the things you love outside and then when you work the 40 hours it will be all work.

Buffington: love working at home.
Make sure you can separate the family because you will be easily distracted.

Lin: had to work on things so I couldn’t go to things.

Pieters: The biz was going fine but it wasn’t a luxury position. I was relying on Geert’s full time job. He is now a biz partner.

How do you say no to a client?

Archer: we’re not a good fit.
::sidenote: works for dating too ;)
Pieters: booked, or give an outrageous quote.
Finck: what do you do after the client’s idea is bad. You have to be a diplomat. Educate the client so they are better clients like web standards. We need to educate them. Don’t say no say why the idea may not work on a technical base.

Have you found inspiration on a blog you’ve read?

All say yes…

Archer: we hire contractors for each project. I was trying to do everything and it was hard. Ramp up time. You can’t wing it if you have others to feed. If you are growing a company for more than just you. cash flow and biz hours when you hire people you need more real production work since you are busy doing the other things. It will be critical if you want your business to grow.

Which have you dreaded more client from hell or content from hell?

Finck: Content, what do you mean?
Content is the last thing on the client’s mind. What is this site? What is the voice? What is the idea?
Buffington: I have a solution. You write about dolphins and put it in the text until they give it to you.

Finck: cartoon songs.The client will fix your mistakes for the latin.
If you are designer know how to do architecture so you can work better with your teammates so you can at least speak.