I really enjoy working for myself because I get to make my own schedule and have the freedom to do almost anything I want to. However after almost a year of working completely for myself and with complete freedom, I decided to get a job.

As of last week I now have a full time job and I wanted you, my readers, to know why I made this decision even though I prefer working for myself.

You may also be wondering why I would even bring this up on a blog where I try to encourage others to start businesses if they are tired of working for someone else. The answer is simple, I believe in honesty and also want you to trust me. With out your trust nothing I encourage you to do on this blog will mean anything to you.

Goals

I have a very large list of goals that I want to accomplish at some point in my life. Some of my goals are very big and will take many years to meet and others I may be able to meet within the month.

A number of my goals are also dependent on another goal. This means that to meet a certain goal I may have to do something else first. Because of this I have to prioritize my goals and start pursuing the ones with the highest priority first. The priority of my goals may change from time to time depending on what I am wanting more at the time.

If one of my goals has a very high priority or may be the goal with the highest priority, I will do almost anything to meet that goal. To me my goals are not dreams they are things I really think I can accomplish and because of this taking action is the only way I am going to meet them.

Debt

As of right now the highest priority goal I have is to be out of debt. Not having any debt has been a goal of mine for a while now and I have managed to stop accumulating debt for the past several years. But with school loans and irresponsible credit card debt, just refraining from getting into more debt is not enough to get out of debt completely in a few years. It is also important to add that the school loans are from both me and my wife which increases the amount of money I need to pay off.

Making minimum payments on our debt is not a big deal. We have been doing this for years and financially this is very easy for us to do. For me continuing to live with debt is not acceptable. Having debt makes me feel trapped and feel someone else has control over me. I am tired of owing others money and long for the sense of freedom I know I will feel once we are completely out of debt.

Why get a job instead of working harder at my businesses?

Deciding to get a job was a very hard thing for me to do. After having almost a year of complete freedom, the idea of going back to the lifestyle of working for someone else did not sound enjoyable.

I considered the idea that if I work harder on my businesses I could bring in more money and put that towards paying off debt. The issue I found with this was that working harder does not always guarantee an increase in revenue and even if there were an increase it may not be consistent.

By getting a good paying job I would be guaranteed a certain amount of money every month. Since I will still be running my businesses and the money from those helps support my family, all the money I make from my job will go straight to our debt.

The job.

I was very lucky to get the job I did. It is a contract job that only lasts 6 months which is the perfect amount of time to get our debt payed off.

For the next 6 months I will be a technical consultant for a company located in Austin, TX that does business worldwide. I am not going to talk about the name of company and what they do on this blog but if you see me I will tell you all about it.

A very nice added bonus to the job is that I get to do a lot of traveling. This is exciting for me because it will allow me to be out of the office quite a bit and not stuck at a desk day after day.

Running a business with a day job.

Having a day job while also running several businesses was not well planned on my part. I believe this will give me valuable experience to pass on to others who may be wanting to start a business while working a day job.

I am sure that it is not going to be easy for me and have already started to feel the affects of having a lot on my plate. But I am confident that I can do it and know for sure that this was the right decision for me to make so I can meet my goal and get out of debt fast.

Photo credit: wageslaves

A few weeks ago I completed my first iPhone app. For a while now I have thought it would be great to have my own iPhone app I just never knew what to create one for.

In the last month or so I started looking into how to make an iPhone app. Most of my programming knowledge is in web development so when I started looking into Objective C, the language iPhone apps are written in, it was like learning a new language.

Luckily there are a lot of free resources on the web for learning the basics. I even found source files to apps that had already been created that I could look at and figure out how things worked.

There are a lot of apps that take a very high skill level and many hours to develop and I knew this was not the route I wanted to take. I wanted an easier route for my first app.

One of the easier types of apps to create is one that pulls in the data from an RSS feed and displays it within the app. An RSS feed is used to publish frequently updated types of media such as blogs and news headlines.

This type of app was the perfect idea to use for the local beer blog I run with my brother-in-law Chris Troutman, BeerTownAustin.com. Not only would it give an added resource to our readers but also gives me a reason to create an app. And so that is exactly what I did.

When you open the app the first screen you come to has a list of the latest article posts from the blog. This screen is an aggregation of all our posted content on the website.

The next tab has all of our videos listed that we have saved on YouTube. While these video posts are listed on the main screen, the video tab allows you to quickly find a video you may want to watch.

Other tabs within the app include a podcast tab with the audio from all our podcasts, BeerTownAustin’s latest Twitter posts, and the last tab includes all of BeerTownAustin’s photos that are saved on Flickr. Overall this app gives you a way to view all content from BeerTownAustin easily and on the go.

Once the app was created I had to submit it to Apple for review and hope they accepted it. It was accepted in exactly two weeks which seems like a pretty reasonable time considering what I have heard from other iPhone developers. This quick turnaround may have been because its function was fairly straight forward.

I have decided I am going to leave the more complicated app developments up to the professionals. I am just happy that I have created one myself. I think I could create another app similar to this one but don’t have anything to create it for so if you have any ideas let me know.

In the near future I hope to have some more complex iPhone apps made as an alternate source of revenue. I will keep you updated when I decide to pursue this.

If you have an iPhone please download the app and let me know what you think. It is free so at least check it out and if you have no need for it you can delete it.

Again let me know what you think in the comments. Also if you like the app leave a review for it in the App Store.

Photo credit: brandon shigeta

Seize this very minute; what you can do, or dream you can, begin it; Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

When I was a kid, probably around 9 or 10, my friends and I would setup tents all over the house using huge sheets from my parents bed. They usually were somehow secured to the ceiling fan or light fixture and then tied off to different objects in the room. We didn’t just use one large king size sheet, we would always grab a handful from the linen cabinet and make the tent as big as possible. Some of our tents even had multiple rooms.

What we did in the tent once it was built usually involved imagining it was our secret hideout that no one else knew about. And only letting people in that had special clearance. This usually did not include my sister. Sorry Catherine.

I remember one tent that I made very clearly. This tent I made by myself with a single purpose, to make money. I set up a huge tent that covered my whole bedroom. I collected all the stuff I owned that I no longer wanted and I put price tags on them with little stickers I found from my mom’s desk drawer. I remember specifically having Nintendo games for sale. Not sure if that is relevant to the story but that is the only thing I remember selling. I then proceeded to call all my friends in the neighborhood to come over and see my little store. I made sure to remind them to bring some money if they wanted to buy something.

I don’t think I became rich that day (well I know for a fact I didn’t become rich that day), but my little store was a success and I did make a little money. Who would have thought 10 year old kids would have the money to buy stuff from me. It is hard to know if something will work unless you try it.

When you have the desire to start your own business, having ideas is the easy part. I talk to people all the time that say they have this great business idea. I can tell they are passionate about their idea too. They talk about it with such excitement. And a lot of the time they have most of the details thought out already. The problem is there is always something that is preventing them for moving forward with their idea. It could be fear, it could be money, or any number of things.

I think fear is probably the most common reason and can easily include money and time. Someone may be worried that they don’t have enough money to start a business. Or worried that it may end up being a flop and they will have wasted time and money pursuing it.

We all have to come to a point where we realize that if we don’t face our fears and give our desires to own a business a chance, we may never live the lives we want.

Eliminate as much risk and then go for it!

If I had not followed through with my idea to sell my stuff in the tent that day, I would have never known that I could actually get neighborhood kids to buy my stuff. It is important though to listen to your fears. If you start something with out thinking about all the details you run the risk of having problems down the road. Analyze your risk and eliminate as much as you can. Then take that first step and start your new business.

You have to take action if you want to be successful in business. You can have 100 good ideas but ideas won’t get you anywhere with out taking action on those ideas first.

Let me know in the comments what is preventing you from moving forward with your ideas. Also if you have a story of when you pursued an idea and it was a success let us know about it in the comments.

Photo credit: pink.polka

Run for the Water Race

I heard somewhere that most people never complete their new years resolutions. I think this is because most people focus on the result instead of focusing on the process. So for example instead of focusing on reaching a certain weight, focus on working out three times a week. If you can make consistency your goal, you may just create a new habit and your result will be fulfilled.

I usually don’t make new years resolutions. I try to set goals on a monthly basis so you could say I have January resolutions. However, I do have plans for 2010. But I won’t get into those here. I always like to look back on the previous year and see what I am happy with and what I could have done better.

Looking back on what I am happy with in 2009:

Created 2 successful businesses. At the beginning of 2009 I started Four Eyed Monkey.com, a web services company. In August I started a web development and branding company called Design Shaman. Both of these companies have continued to grow through strong pushes in social media marketing as well as good ol’ fashion networking. I am excited to see what happens in 2010.

Started working for myself full time. In August of 2009 I quit my job at Apple, Inc. to work full time for myself. This is something I had been looking forward to for a long time. It took me stepping out of my comfort zone and overcoming my fear. And look what happened… everything turned out great!

Custom built my fixed gear bike. At the beginning of 2009 I worked with my friend Kansas to completely rebuild my 1980’s Puch road bicycle into a fixed gear bike. Kansas only guided me in the process making me do all the work myself, including re-spoking my wheel. Re-spoking a wheel is a very tedious endeavor. I am now hooked on building bikes and fortunately I received lots of bike tools for Christmas.

Ran a series of races. At the end of 2008 to the beginning of 2009 I participated in the Austin Distance Challenge. The challenge included many races including two half marathons, a 20 mile race and the Austin Marathon. I completed every race except the marathon (made it to mile 18) due to a tendon injury I got from over training. Sometimes I think I am Superman, but am always reminded that I am not.

Started riding my bike most places. After finishing my fixed gear bike I started trying to ride everywhere I could. My wife and I scaled down to one car several years ago, so riding my bike everywhere makes sense. I hope to ride even more this year.

Started a personal blog. I have made an attempt to start a blog a few times over the past several years, and every time have failed. I write 2 or 3 posts and then get lazy. This time has been different. I have made it a point to write consistently and hopefully write good content. Remember what I said about focusing on the process not the result. I am trying to make writing a process to become a habit.

I believe it is always good to also look back and decide what could have been done better the previous year. Not to think of myself as a failure, but to intentionally improve on those areas the next year. So here are some things I wish I could have done better in 2009.

Traveled more, internationally. I did some traveling this year, but not much. And all of my traveling was done in the U. S. For 2010 I want to travel more and make sure to travel internationally. My wife and I already have some things in the works to make this happen, but more on that later.

Worked out more. I was working out almost everyday when I was training for running, but since the Austin Marathon in February I only work out sporadically. While I do ride my bike quite a bit, I have not run or lifted weights much.

Eat healthier. I started off eating very healthy in 2009, but the past 6 months or so I have started to eat more and more unhealthy food. It is very noticeable that I feel and act differently when I am not eating healthy. Time to eat more veggies!

Those are the big ones in each category. Here’s to another great year!

What were you happy with in 2009?

Photo credit: Stephen Poff

It is very important to have direction and goals with any project or new business venture. In the past I have found myself launching a great new business idea with no written plan or solid goals. I quickly discovered that while sometimes this approach works out fine, more often than not it either slows the process of success or eliminates it completely.

It is a well-known idea that when you write your goals down your chance for success increases dramatically. I have experienced this time and time again in my own life. Whether it was fitness goals or business goals I realized my success rate was much higher than previous attempts when I developed a plan to meet my objectives. Creating a business plan falls in line with this idea and offers a new business a greater chance of success.

Another reason for having a written plan for your business is to keep you focused on each task at hand. It is easy to get caught up giving all of your time to only one aspect of your business and forgetting about the other components involved. One example of this may be that you spend all of your time perfecting your online presence (website, social networking interaction, etc.) and forget that you need to be pursuing new clients by networking face to face. A business plan offers a map to follow in pursuit of your new venture that helps to keep you moving forward.

The business planning process can seem overwhelming at first. When I first decided to create a business plan I did a huge amount of research and it got very discouraging very fast. I felt even more discouraged when I looked at example business plans and found they were lengthy, detailed and wordy.

There are a few simple things to keep in mind that can make the process seem more manageable. For example, try to avoid over planning or getting caught up in the details, which may cause you to quit before you’ve gotten started. To help avoid over planning, write a business plan that is easy to read and understand. It is important to plan enough to be ready to take action but not necessary to map out every minute detail. You just need a solid plan that will lay the groundwork for you to get started and help keep you excited about your new venture. Keep in mind that this business plan is for you and is intended to increase your chance for success so keep things simple.

The best way to write a business plan that is easy to read and understand is to create your business plan in an outline form. This form makes the plan easier to navigate so you can quickly locate different sections throughout. Use bullet points whenever possible as long wordy paragraphs can be difficult to follow. With an outline structure most people can expect their business plan to be around 3 to 5 pages.

Below is an example business plan in outline format. This was my first draft for a web design company I started.

Before you get started with the business plan there is one more important step to take. Choose your business name. One of the preliminary steps for a business start up is to choose a name to represent your company. Choosing the right name will greatly increase your chance for success. Consider choosing a name that is descriptive of what your business will accomplish. A descriptive name allows others to immediately identify the purpose of your business. For example, if you are a florist living in Austin, TX, you may come up with the name “Austin Flower Designs”. This name helps the consumer quickly recognize your business services.

However, you may also consider choosing a name for it’s memorable qualities. An example of this might be a company named “Four Eyed Monkey“. This is one of my companies and I chose this because the name itself and the logo of a four-eyed monkey are unique and memorable to those I do business with. This is a good reminder that it is important to consider your overall branding strategy when coming up with your business name. Having a memorable logo to go along with your name may help you have a more successful marketing campaign.

Additional considerations when selecting a name:

• Keep your name short. If it is too long it will be hard to remember. Example: The Flower and Small Gifts Shop on the Hill.
• Avoid abbreviations and acronyms. Example: A flower and small gift shop called F.S.G.S., Inc.

Once you have secured a business name it is time to get started writing the business plan. It may work best if you approach each section by writing a list of your ideas for that section. Later you can go back and narrow down some of the ideas and information. It is important at first to get everything you are thinking written down. Let’s get started.

Your Vision

You need to begin by defining what the vision or purpose for your business is. Your vision is very important because it is what guides your business decisions so make it simple, clear and straightforward. The easiest way to do this is by answering the questions, “How am I going to reach my vision?” and “Why do does my business exist?” Once you have defined your purpose and identified how you are going to achieve it try to imagine what the future for your business might be.

Product or Service

Next, identify what your product or service is. It is important to be very clear in this section. If I am starting a web design company I may just put that my service is web design. But what does that mean? This description needs more detail. Instead I may put, e-commerce websites for small businesses, logo design, and online marketing consulting services. You may notice that even some of those could still include more detail but you get the basic idea, be thorough in your description of products and/or services.

Costs

Defining your costs and profit is one of the most important aspects of a business plan. To find these, three things need to be considered: What costs will I incur to provide my product or service? What will I charge my clients or customers? What will my profit be? These are very important questions because they let you know what to charge customers, help you set your budget and sales goals and determine overall profitability.

The best way to begin analyzing your costs is to write down all the expenses you think you will incur with your product or service. The cost of producing a product or service may vary from one cost to a number of different costs that when added together provide your total cost for that product or service.

Once your costs have been determined you can use this amount as a base to define what you will charge the customer for your product or service.  You may then determine your profit margin by subtracting your costs from the cost to your customer but keep in mind there may be additional costs to consider before you calculate your overall profit. For example, your services may require hiring a support staff, which will add additional costs you must take into account.

Staff and Wages

Hiring employees can make a new business start up more complex, financially and otherwise, but it may be necessary to assure that your business operates smoothly. Before hiring employees there are a few things that should be considered. To begin, don’t hire employees just because you don’t want to do the work. Starting any business is hard work and you have to be ready for that. You must decide whether you really need an employee before you take on that responsibility. In the long run, it may be easier for you to do the work at hand then to hire another employee.

While hiring employees may make your perceived workload easier, you must consider the added emotional responsibility as well. You must manage employees and meet their requested needs. If an employee is having trouble at home, you may become a part of dealing with those problems. You also have to consider that there are added expenses to having employees like wages, insurance, and the need for office space to have a place for the employees to work.

I am in no way saying that employees are bad but try to be realistic about the added responsibility that comes with hiring people.

One alternative to consider is hiring contracted workers or freelancers. In most cases when you hire a contracted worker they can work from their home and act as a separate business or individual. This means that you are not responsible for their taxes, insurance, etc. Another added bonus is that contracted workers in many cases work harder because they want to keep working for you as opposed to an employee who may find it easier to slack off here and there.

If hiring others is unnecessary then just fly solo for now. It is be much easier to hire people out of need than to let someone go when there is no work for them to do.

Budget

You must have a solid financial plan if your business is going to be successful. One of the biggest assets to your financial plan is a budget. In this part of your business plan you need to make a budget for your first year of business. In this section you will need to refer back to the cost section of your business plan. Your budget allows you to organize all of your projected expenses and projected income into one place that is easy to follow and utilize.

Your budget will consist of the following:

• All operating expenses such as office space, Internet service, and phone line
• Equipment and capital expenditures
• Wages for support staff
• Expected sales
• Projected income from all sources

It is very important that you include every expense and source of income you can think of. Remember this business plan is for you so don’t leave something out of your budget because it makes it look less attractive. Include everything because if you want your business to be successful you have to be honest with yourself.

Competition

Having competition is a good thing. When there is competition it means that there is a need. As much as you may like to be the only one out there doing what ever it is you do, most likely that’s never going to be the case. Competition gives you the opportunity to do a better job than someone else, it keeps you on your feet and prevents you from being lazy.

Since there is competition out there you need to know everything you can about it. You will need to research what the competition is offering and how they are marketing it. This will help to assure that your product or service is better than your competitor’s.

It may feel like you are wasting time doing research when all you want to do is get started with your business but finding out about your competition will give you a better chance at success. Make it fun. Think of yourself as an undercover spy trying to discover the inner workings of your competition. Call your competitor and find out what their prices are and request they send you their product brochure or any other materials they may have. The more information you have the easier it will be for you to successfully compete.

Writing a business plan will take you some time but it will pay off in the end, I promise. Just remember that even though you have a plan and all your goals are written down none of it means anything if you don’t take action. Take action. When you run into roadblocks, and you will trust me, push through them and keep going. Persistence will pay off in the end.

We all have dreams of the lives we would like to be living or the business we would like to start or the job we would like to have. People who fear failure are limiting themselves and will not achieve what they are capable of without overcoming this fear.

The fear of failure is very much rooted in the fear of what others think about us. It is a fear of rejection, or a fear of how people will view us. We are so worried that others will think less of us if we fail, so we just decide it is not worth it to try. The funny thing about it though, is that those same people we are worried about have the same fear of failure that we do, and for all we know they may admire us for even trying.

If you want to be successful you must overcome your fear of failure. I am talking about success in a very broad sense. The fear of failure is always going to hold you back from what you really want in life. You must start thinking of failure a different way. Think of failure as a positive outcome. When you fail you learn. No one gets it right the first time every time. From failure comes success. Successful people understand this and do not fear failure but embrace it.

The best thing you can do to begin overcoming your fear of failure is to take action. Action is the most important step any of us can take when going after our dreams, because if we don’t take action we will just talk ourselves out of doing anything at all. Action can be broken up into multiple actions. If you are wanting to move to a new place you may start by making a list of all the things you need to get done before you can get on the plane and go. Then set a date when you need to have everything done and be on you way to that new place. Now you can break all those things up and do a little at a time. Just take action as soon as possible or you probably won’t take it at all.

If you fail you must be persistent. You must not give up just because something did not work out the way you thought it was going to. If it is something you really want, keep going for it until you get it. Use your failure as a learning experience and use the knowledge you gain on your next try. Persistence is a very important part of overcoming the fear of failure.

Let’s go back to the idea that the fear of failure is also sometimes the fear of what others will think about us. It is very important to realize that others feelings towards us are usually a reflection of how those people think about themselves. If we fail others may like that because it reaffirms to them that their dreams are not reachable either. It makes them feel good to see someone else fail and know that it is not them failing. But we need to break free from caring about what those people think, because when we fail we should not take it personally. It does not mean that we are not capable of succeeding. It only means that we now have more information for the next time we try again. Just think how people will think of you when you are persistent and actually succeed at what you wanted.

So go and take action on the dreams you have for your life. And embrace the idea of failure, don’t fear it anymore. Remember to always be persistent. You may fail several times before you get it right but that is all part of the learning process.