In 2014, after a period of sustained depression and anxiety, I impulsively quit my job to start my own business. I had no business plan or obvious way of obtaining clients. I didn’t even have a strong grasp on what kinds of services I would be offering. But, corporate life had me on the run and I was seriously unhappy.
For the previous 15 years I commuted to New York City from New Jersey to pursue my career in Information Technology. I worked my way through the ranks until I landed a position as a system admin and team lead for a major international digital marketing agency. During the six years I was with this agency I gained expert-level knowledge in IT operations management, IT project management, system administration and desktop management. One day, however, the learning stopped and two years went by without me knowing it. One day I looked up and I was in my own idea of personal hell.
Sometime later, I had a thought. I’ll start a computer consulting company! And off I went to work.
Today, three years later, my company has problems equal to, if not greater than, those I had in the beginning. My sense of disorientation and insecurity are the same. My inability to clearly see the path before me remains. Three years ago, I remember thinking, If I could just make a couple hundred dollars a week, so many of my problems would go away. My wife and I were pretty much broke, with our first baby on the way. My goal was simple – a couple hundred a week.
When I achieved that goal of a couple hundred a week, the success barely registered with me, as I transitioned towards my next goal. Refine my offerings, get a better website, engage in networking events, add services, refine my offering again, rename the company, rebrand, another new website, $5,000 a month, $10,000 a month, obtain office space, pinpoint my place in the market. These goals came and went and I moved on to the next thing without a moment to observe what happened.
My computer consulting company that didn’t have a business plan had pivoted to a computer services company pulling in around $22K per month with me as the sole employee. The company has no debt, $50k in cash, $40K in available credit and around a 60% profit margin.
My client relationships are tremendous, due mostly to my tremendous level of service and support.
I feel like I am at the point where, if I wanted to, I could maintain the current client load, continue to work on my own and, between mine and my wife’s salary, carve out a nice little life for myself. As a man of simple means, this is certainly attractive. But, as man of resourcefulness and enthusiasm, I prefer the challenge of continuing to grow this business into something greater.
I must admit, I am still struggling with next steps and confidence. How to I keep the pedal down? What do my clients really want? How do I reach a larger audience? These are all things I grapple with. But mostly I struggle with creating the blueprint for how this company will ultimately run without me doing everything.
The success I have had does not feel like success. This is probably because of the enormous amount of errors I have made along the way. Errors were common, especially in the beginning, and a still common now. Some you can quickly fix, like having a spelling error in your email signature, and some you must live with for a while, like having a bad website. Either way, the cumulative effect of all these errors is less money.
I have hired and fired people. I have hired people and have them quit after being trained. I have signed lopsided contracts and paid too much for services. I give discounts were none were deserved and failed to give them when they were. I’ve been, at times, lazy. Other times I have been manic and impulsive.
And now I am focused on the future. I have recently secured office space and am looking to make a couple hires to handle support, while I continue to pursue new business. I will also continue to act as a system’s admin for infrastructure related work (installing servers, etc.) for the time being.
My goal is to slowly the leave company in the hands of talented people. My current business plan calls for 7 fulltime and 2 part-time employees and a refocusing on consulting work in addition to pursuing more managed services clients.
Any questions, advice, comments would be greatly appreciated.
Tl;dr Made a lot of mistakes, but despite that my computer services company is profitable and looking towards a greater future.
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