I grew up in a culture of building a business.
My dad was always in business for himself, primarily as a General Contractor (housing and offices). I grew up in the culture of providing excellent product and service.
My first engineering job was a three engineer office.
You get a good sense of responsibility for your work and the importance of reputation with this upbringing.
Working at Intergraph Corporation extended the awareness of presence and customer service to a national and global market.
I moved cross country to consult to the City of San Diego in 1995.
I formed an S-Corporation, met the "board requirements", did the "corporate and personal taxes" and the other managerial and legal requirements.
In 2000, I chose to "Go National" rather than restrict my value to a single, albeit large, client. The City's Charter did not allow us to repurpose our training to designers outside the City.
My plan was to write and sell innovative and effective training manuals to individuals, corporations and resellers. I would promote my material and services online via a company website.
Soon enough, I was working on Foothill Transportation Corridor South as a designer and travelling around the country training. Eventually, I was helping Departments of Transportation migrate from the "old" MicroStation/InRoads (63 levels!).
I was out of state about 50% of the time. I was greatly enjoying my work, and to, a large part, fulfilling what my dad surely would have been very proud of, running my own business, making a lot of money.
I joke that one of the reasons that I shut down Civil XLr8 was when my wife asked, "Shouldn't you be on the road somewhere?" There is some truth there.
My dad didn't do much outside work and family. Running a business can be very consuming.
I was at the point where I had accomplished all that I had initially imagined doing, I was instrumental in transforming state-level organizations. Dad would have been impressed.
I was at the point where I would have to hire employees, which would be a whole new level of responsibility, and a change in focus away from the engineering.
I chose to take a local InRoads jobs and wound up working embedded at CalTrans, which was a really informing experience. My son was born while I worked there.
It was a good decision to stay local and start a family. I have been here at home for my son's entire life.
Conceiving of a business value, forming a plan, executing the plan, and marketing myself and my services was a great experience. It was a natural development of my upbringing and reinforces my customer-centric professional worldview.
My two biggest takeaways:
- Your relationships are the most important part of your professional life.
- "If you build a better mousetrap, the world will be a path to your door" is utter BS. You must have a communication (marketing) plan and relentlessly reach out to your market.
