Entrepreneurialism

Like Clouds in the Sky

by Em Are · Mar 15, 2016

I hit a milestone today. 400 meditation sessions using the Calm app on my iPhone. Not too bad if I do say. That’s over a period of about 20 months or so.

The results?

More patience
Less stress when confronted with, let’s say, life’s frequent challenges
Greater sense of what’s going on around me
Being aware of today; less consumed with tomorrow

These are all good things for me, my family, and my business.

Having the ability of being able to take a step back a bit and breathe usually allows me to insert just enough time between ‘hear’ and ‘react’. That can make all the difference. Not that I was a knee-jerk reactionist before, but as a small business owner I’ve learned that I need to put time between when I first learn of a situation and how I respond to it.

I’m a solo-preneur. I work alone. Many days I have no direct interaction with client and other human beings outside of email and online chats. [Yes, please pity my wife for she gets the brunt of my cooped up desire for person-to-person interaction when she gets home from work most days.] In that environment, I find myself slipping into too much of an inwardly focused reaction template. Meditation has helped me by looking into myself and seeing what is most important. I must be present to what I am exposed to, while at the same time being aware of what the other person is being exposed to.

Meditation is good for my business. Through meditation I have learned to step back, add space and better understand the how’s and why’s of the situation presented to me.

Clients come from every possible perspective, I can see that. I’ve not been in business all that long, but I’m seeing new things every day. It’s all in how I react, how I embrace their needs, and most importantly, how I respond to them.

The more empathy in my response, the more likely that everyone will see the interaction as a successful one. One in which everyone’s concerns are heard, and appropriately responded to. I think that is the crux of small business. Approaching each and every situation in a personal, human manner. Let go of the corporate image, the crafted branding. Respond humanly.

One of the suggestions offered during the guided meditation I use is to “…let outside thoughts float by like clouds in the sky…”.

I find this suggestion helpful throughout the day to stay focused on what is truly important. Try it. Meditation may be just what your business consultant forgot to tell you.

_{Photo Credit: Logan Gorman}

Two Corinthians Walk Into A Bar

by Em Are · Mar 1, 2016

I couldn’t resist. My wife and I have a running joke based on a recent biblical reference flub that came up during the current presidential campaign circus. This past Sunday at church, the second reading was from 1 Corinthians and I looked at my wife and we both kind of snickered a little. Shared moments keep things going I guess.

It’s hard to get back on track when you begin a post tangentially like that. Bear with me. Here goes.

This past Sunday’s reading, from 1 Corinthians 10, ended with the declaration that we are not given more to deal with than we can handle; that the burdens we find ourselves carrying are ones we actually have the strength to bear.

This is most applicable right now. My business is 20 months old this month. Not old by any measure; but still operating. That’s a good thing. I absolutely love what I’m doing. I work with small businesses all the time, both mature small businesses and brand new I-have-an-idea small businesses. They share a number of philosophies, but the one that stands out the most for me is the persistence to move forward, to keep going and make it through whatever challenges they are now facing. They create. They adapt. They believe in themselves.

When I get to work with a small business its typically at a very positive time in their life cycle. For the mature ones, they are at a point where they want to make a change, to try something new, to freshen things up a bit. By ‘things’ I am referring to their website, since that’s what I do.

For the new ones, wow! Talk about positive energy. Ideas, dreams, confusion, fear, excitement, you name it, they are experiencing it. When I work with them, I get to experience this too, to a certain degree. I love funneling a bit of their creativity into their website.

And that’s the point. I get to experience a little of the newness, the excitement, the fear, the dreams, the it’s-time-to-tweak feeling over and over and over again with each new small business client I work with.

I need that. As a small business owner, I go through the ups and downs too. Two months ago I had my best revenue month ever; last month, not even close. Yesterday, one of my small business customers informed me that she had decided to take a break from her business for a while and wouldn’t be needing my services any longer. But you know what? It didn’t feel bad to me.

It’s not like a oh-too-recent time in my life when a corporate ‘leader’ came to me out of the blue and told me that “we’ve decided to go in a different direction and will not be needing your services any longer”.

No, it’s not like that at all. This small business owner was going in a different direction, a direction that was not going to depend on a functioning website, a direction that she needed to take to power through the challenges she was experiencing. I was happy that she was finding her way forward and that I had been a part of her path to this point. She was happy with the work we did together, and I am positive she will be an excellent reference going forward.

Entrepreneurialism, small business ownership, freelancing – whatever it’s called, is all about finding your way through. There are countless books out there on how ‘they’ did it, but it’s how you or I do it that really matters. Find the inner strength. Power ahead.

I firmly believe that I am not given more to handle than I can. I might not know how to handle it at this moment, but my heart tells me that I will learn it, come across it, be shown it, and a direction will be uncovered.

Onward and upward.

Now, where was I? Oh yeah. So two Corinthians walk into a bar, one says . . .

Cap Web Solutions 3.0

by Matt · Jul 2, 2015

Live Without a Hitch. Gotta Love It.

Pulled the trigger right around 5:00 pm UTC-5 yesterday. Thanks to the excellent DNS change documentation from WP Engine, everything went smoothly and the newest incarnation of capwebsolutions.com went live. I actually needed to do some tweaking on the WP Engine hosting end of things since I was running a completely new instance of the site.

Version 3.0

Yep, that’s correct. Version 3. Cap Web Solutions LLC has been officially a Commonwealth of Pennsylvania entity for one year now so I thought that it was appropriate to give the company the gift of a complete online presence makeover. The previous site, which was more focused on the website maintenance and support service, can now be found at it’s new address – TopHatTotalCare.com. I really hope that the name clicks when you read it. ‘Top hat’. ‘Cap’ Web. Get it?

That was actually version 2.0 – a complete rewrite of the inaugural site that was launched just over a year ago. Version 2 came out in late winter 2015 as a full Genesis website rocking the parallax effects for the front page images. There’s a little more detail on the portfolio page of our new site. Check it out.

This incarnation solidifies Cap Web Solutions’ focus on developing websites fully utilizing the Genesis Framework. As our portfolio demonstrates, we are gaining more and more experience in the Genesis camp. I have found that the framework is well written, appropriately documented, and after having a couple of advanced classes under my belt, very easy to customize to accommodate any design requirements that I have come up against.

Community is Where Its At

I continue to be awestruck by the WordPress community, both here in the suburban Philadelphia area (shout-out to the Philly ‘Burbs WordPress Meetup ) and nationwide. That sense of community runs even stronger within the Genesis camp. WordPress enthusiasts, be they users, administrators, or hard-core designers and developers, tend to always want to help one another, offer support to strangers, improve the technology, all in the name of moving the WordPress project forward. I recently attended my second Philadelphia WordCamp and came away from the day with renewed excitement for the path I’ve chosen, the people I’ve met, and the opportunities yet to be explored.

Onward and upward.

My MVP? I Got This. #7DAYSTARTUP DAY 2

by Em Are · Jan 15, 2015

Day 2 of Dan Norris’ The 7 Day Startup: You Don’t Learn Until You Launch has me identifying my minimally viable product, or MVP, that I will be able to offer at launch. I’ve struggled over the last week or so to get the time to nicely assemble this info in a presentable packet so that I could progress on this journey. Turns out that the 7 day startup for me, is, well, more like 7 little projects to startup. Day 1 was almost a week ago. Mike Echlin does it justice in his Day 6 blog post. Check it out here. While you are there check out his whole series. He has a cool idea.

In any case, this morning I had a break through, roughly around 4 am when most of my break through (can ‘break through’ be plural?) occur.

This is me, talking to myself at 4 am today:

Matt, you already have all this stuff. When you started Cap Web Solutions you outlined a page-load of support and maintenance services you offer. Three tiers of support tasks, along with pricing, a way to ask for the service, email address for communication – it’s all there.

Right. I do have it. I’m launching / re-launching with more simplicity this time. Trash the 3 levels of maintenance. Forget the multilevel pricing. Let’s do it simple. Make it easy for customers to understand and buy. The whole elevator pitch concept I am so familiar with these days.

Done. My MVP will be a consolidation of my three maintenance tiers, one price for all, details on what types of maintenance we do, and how to get in touch with us. The name of the service is still in limbo, but will most probably be a take-off of my current branding theme. I’ll set up the live chat feature so customers can contact us that way. I’ll add in some auto-responders and workflow to keep track of requests that come in. Billing is already in place so no worries there. I’ll tweak my current website, actually I’ll do a complete overhaul and get rid of the extraneous stuff. Just focus on the MVP.

The next day/ task/ project will follow quickly. I know it. My break through was awesome this morning. In fact it got me up, and hitting the key board very quickly today. And a few cups of Dunkin’ Donuts Dark Roast didn’t hurt either.

All the best.

Cap Web Solutions launched today.

by Em Are · Jul 9, 2014

Today is the day. It is done. Off and running. Let’s rock and roll. Insert any other cliche indicating the start is occurring. I’m excited. Tired. Enthused. Nervous. Pumped. You name it. I’m on that proverbial emotional roller coaster today. Queue the smattering of applause in the background.

Earlier today I launched my business publicly on the web. Cap Web Solutions LLC is officially open for business. The ubiquitous “under construction” page banner is now gone – the effective widget having been deactivated. The SEO widget is turned on and, hopefully, feeding the big G lots of metadata for a mid-afternoon snack.

To do list: Posted an announcement on LinkedIn ✔, Twitter ✔, Google+ ✔, Facebook ✔, and sent to Mom (since she’s not on any of these platforms) ✔.

I’ve set up a unique Google+ page and Twitter feed for the business. I’m not sure if this is a reasonable thing to do or not, but I will try it for a while. I may find that it’s just too much to manage and revert back to using my personal social platforms for these conversations. Do you have any experience in this area? What have you found to be the optimal solution in your world? Feel free to let me know in the comments. I’d love to get your input. Oh, and the new site does have a blog. That will be much more technology and business focused, but it is another path to populate with ideas.

It feels like it has been an extremely long time to get to this point, but in retrospect, I’ve only been aggressively pursuing it for just over 2 months. I’m still fine-tuning the business plan, with the help of the Chester County SCORE office. The official LLC registration paperwork from the Commonwealth is “in process”. The Fed knows I’m real. Oh boy. I’m in talks with a potential established business partner, to see how we might work together. It sounds very promising, but still at the early stages.

This new opportunity is now formally past the “exploratory” stage and into the execution stage. Since I expect that this will be a continuously evolving world for me, I plan to keep on putting my thoughts together here. Please stop back and visit from time to time. I do appreciate it.

Thanks for your love and support.

All the best to you…

I am an entrepreneur.

by Em Are · May 20, 2014

After a brisk walk this morning I headed off to the dentist for a 6 month checkup. My preference is always for early morning dental visits – ‘get it over with’ is my motto when it comes to dental experiences. As I was getting settled in the dental hygienist asks me if I had the day off. “No”, I said, “I have a website development company and I’m able to work from home.” Just like that. No second thought. No stumbling through the ‘in transition’ awkwardness that I never did get very good at when faced with the question before. I have a website development company and I work for myself! Wow.

That really felt good. I am an entrepreneur. (Note to self. You have to commit the spelling of that word to memory along with its proper pronunciation. Stop using right-click spell check on it.) This week I’m fully immersed in marketing mode. Writing copy for my website, re-working my LinkedIn profile, making networking connections with new mentors, fleshing out the business plan and pulling together the financials.

Tomorrow evening I’m registered for a course sponsored by the Small Business Development Center at Kutztown University. The class, “How to Start and Operate a Small Business” is part of their first steps program to enable me to get access to their business start-up consulting services. The following night I begin a 4 part workshop on Business Planning. This is sponsored by local SCORE chapter in Chester County, PA. I am energized by the opportunity to learn, to expand my skill set and better prepare myself for a successful venture.

My website is still just a shell, but it is starting to take shape. More copy to be written and added tonight. I’ll link to it soon enough. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

All the best to you.

Let’s do this.

by Em Are · May 13, 2014

Attended my first gathering of a MeetUp group last night. It was the Philly ‘burbs WordPress MeetUp in King of Prussia. Awesome group of individuals. Welcoming. Supportive. Helpful. Kind. Smart. Sharing. Talking to these folks and then listening to 2 short techie nuggets and a great presentation by Jim Breslin, the founder of West Chester Story Slam, I am convinced that I’m going down the right track.

I was inspired by what I experienced to follow what my heart and my gut (and my wife) are telling me. That now is the right time to step out on my own and do what I really feel driven to do, even though my bank account, looming retirement, desire to eat and maintain a roof are telling me to go get that corporate job again.

My time at Home Depot taught me well: “Let’s do this”.

I’m going to move forward and launch my web development, design, implementation, maintenance and consultation business (that’s a mouthful). Even though I’m still working through the business plan, I have set up some meetings with potential mentors and resources and have begun to network in the WordPress community. I’ll be living in that world for all of my work. I’ve done considerable research there and I feel comfortable that my programming skills, experiences and management style will be most compatible.

More (much more) to come. Wish me well.