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.

Seth Godin again provided a great post this morning “Breaking the Glass” It got me rather fired up, and excellent analogy and a great example of why I think Seth Godin is a genius.

Break the glass, start doing what you set out to do, stop talking about it and do it. When you are ready to shut up and walk, things start moving, happening and growing. Inside that glass is nothing, just a vapid idea, something that could be, but something that isn’t. Its up to you and no one else to make that idea into something great.

There’s a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot.

Also, sorry for the profane title.

This has been one heck of a busy week.

Since our new site design has gone live we have doubled our traffic and doubled the interest in our services. This is creating quite alot for me to do, being as there are only 2 of us left in our company. We do the work of about 8 or 9 people, which is fun.

I took a quick break on Sunday and shot up to Hunter Mountain with my friend Mark and my brother. It was a beautiful day; sunny, warm, and the snow was awesome. We beat the mountain up pretty good. Sunday put me in a great mood for the week, which I knew was going to be very busy.

So far this week I have been completely crazy meeting people, updating our sites interface, and trying to keep the rest of my life together. Which has not been easy these days, we just gave a job offer to someone, who accepted the offer, then following a brief of her first day, rescinded her acceptance. Perfect!

I’m going a little crazy these days, my life as an entrepreneur has taken me to the limits of my stress levels, and only now, after 3 months of high tension and near death panic, I can finally feel it relieving. Pheww…

I’m going to the gym, maybe I won’t come back.

I’m not sure that there is much scientific data to back this up across the board, but in my experience this theory/rule works. There is alot of click-through data, and conversion ratios that would support this as well.

My 5% theory is that ultimately about 5% of your efforts are ultimately going to succeed. Whether it is converting a lead in sales or converting a purchase on your website. And sometimes 5% is very good. The best online stores convert <5% of their visitors into a purchase, 3 - 4% is often considered excellent.

Now, this theory has alot to do with a lack of focus that many people, and most businesses have and is a by product of the long build up of the mass market. As the internet has grown in influence and instant communications have flattened and shrunken the world, the mass market is largely disappearing in favor of small, segmented niche markets. These markets are allowing niche businesses to succeed wildly by focusing on people who want, need and have a strong desire for their products or services.

My self learned lesson (recently and thanks to a little inspiration from Seth Godin), is that in business and in life, it is tempting to throw cast the wide net and see who we can catch. However, it is often quite to your advantage to focus on what you do best.

On the other hand, not every product has a tiny niche market that you are able to reach. There are many factors that might prevent you from reaching that market (technology, scale, personnel, etc), and sometimes you are better off going after a larger piece of the pie.

What I am essentially getting at is that in life and in business you need to focus on that 5%. Whether you choose to narrow your focus on a 5% niche, or you choose to take the 5% conversion rate you have and focus on increasing that. Instead of casting a larger net, focus on landing a high percentage of your casts. Maybe you narrow your business, or maybe you get better at it. Either way, the rest of the world operates at 5%, and you (and me) need to find a way to make that 5% more valuable.

So take a look at what you do, and see if you can do it better, grow that 5% into 98% or to 8% one way or another, the 5% rule will make sense in what you do.

Many times I find myself looking into other people’s lives and wondering what it would be like in their shoes. I have a habit of jealousy towards others, whether it be their shoes, their car, their website design or layout, among a host of other things. One thing I’ve taught myself is that you have to be happy in your own grass - happy with yourself.

While this can apply to every aspect of your life, the one in which I have been applying this of late is my career. More specifically the direction my company has taken. While building and designing the product I deliver, my deepest ideas have never evolved into something tangible. However, I have always managed to do the best I can with my given resources.

Here is where this comes into play for me. Often I find myself in the face of larger, established competition, and its very easy to say “if I had their resources…” but the thing that keeps me going strong is that I do not have their resources. In fact I don’t have anyone’s resources but my own, but I still manage to out fox them.

While the grass on the other side of that fence may look greener, softer, more lucrative, whatever - you never know what goes on to make it. If you’re not happy with your grass you can always, trim it, nurture it, feed it or tear it out an make a garden. As long as its your grass and you’re doing the best you can with it, you should always be happy in it.