The Last 4 Months
Posted by Jamie Hutson | Filed under Life, Small Businesses, Start Ups
The last four months might as well have been the first 3 years of my post-collegiate life. The company came from the brink of disaster to pretty much where it was in October. Several complete disasters happened in between and I can say that I am much better off for it all (maybe not financially…). On December 1st, the day we launched our newest website, our server was overloaded, it crashed and we lost about 80% of the data on it. A week later a partner (and our lead outside salesperson) left with his own self determined severance package. Three weeks after Christmas, just as I was getting over the last two disasters, a fire destroyed the apartment of our most faithful employee, along with our entire office which had been relocated to a 2nd bedroom there. A terrible tragedy for her, and a major setback for the company. Not only did we lose literally all of our information from the past 2 years, but we lost our last employee for 6 weeks. Did I mention that this all happened leading up to the worst part of the year for us (which was probably a blessing in retrospect) but it didn’t bode well for the future.
In the final week of February I was certain we were going out of business. Our accounts receivable had gotten out of control in turn so was accounts payable. I had no where to turn, my credit was maxed out, but I knew if we could get to May it would all be ok. I was back on my own, running a company operating in 4 cities across the northeast and now expected to handle 300 clients who all demanded face to face service. Good thing I had just gotten a new car (which I could no longer afford at this point).
I’ve learned more about life in the past 6 months than I had in the 23 years prior. I learned that your faith in yourself should never be out matched by your faith in other people. I learned the power of a positive attitude, and I learned who my true friends were. I discovered how open most people are to helping you if you’re honest and that as flaky as some people may be, others will always be there with good intentions.
But perhaps most importantly I learned a lot about myself. I won’t go into that, but through this capitalistic battle, I learned that what I am doing really kicks ass. In a down economy, with all odds against my little company of 5 people shrunk back to one, we persevered and our clients and prospects saw opportunities for themselves, drove demand and helped us get through. Ultimately it was the market that told me not to quit. I’m persistent, but I know the invisible hand of the market can’t be forced.
I love playing the underdog. Slower technology, lesser equipment, no big names behind us and certainly a smaller team, The Life is moving forward as fast as it ever was. Bring it on funded companies, lets have at it IAC. I’m focusing on building a solid product and developing my business model to complete this sustainable business - and its working. No, we don’t have the latest web technology, or the newest laptops (I’m writing this on an Inspiron 600m I bought 5 years ago), or the most experienced Sales Team (right now its me training two people who have a combined zero years experience doing anything) and with the exception of a few casual conversations, I haven’t really gone after capital and I doubt anyone is going to come out of left field to put big money behind us (although I know for a fact we’re more profitable than a lot of funded startups).
I’m reminded of my 5th grade english teacher, who told me I would never get into college with my work ethic. I wonder if she knows anything about 100 hour work weeks.
July 1st, 2008 at 9:30 am
This is an amazing post. I cant believe people pay money to go to life-coaching and business-coaching when they could just read real life examples like this. Amazing perseverance and focus. You will succeed, I have no doubt about it.
July 6th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Thank you very much Shafqat, I hope everything is going well for you guys over at NewsCred!