Hi all, my name is Kurt and I have been the epitome of a Slow Laner. After completing graduate school with dreams of middle management, I went to work for a global chemical company and spent the next 16 years making money for others and going nowhere, really. Top 25% performance ratings got me so-so ‘promotions’, I got bored, and eventually downright discouraged. As I entered my 40’s I knew I wanted a second career, but starting over just wasn’t a possibility and I was starting to accept that I would have to spend the next 20 years toughing out the boredom and corporate disrespect with the expectation that I WOULD retire at 60 no matter how my signficant 401K contributions turned out. Enter the entrepreneurial opportunity…
I decided to take on a fundraiser related to a new personal interest, and struggled with it the first year by begging donations off of family and friends. Determined to find a better way the following year, I came up with a new fundraising concept that generated 6x my begged donations and excited my local community. I decided to create a brand around it and bring the concept to the world, but I found out that I needed passionate, dedicated customers who could climb a learning curve and inspire others in a group to do the same… and my web development skills sucked! One does not build successful business by screening or interviewing customers and my newly created LLC just sat until my fundraising success opened a new door for me.
The sponsoring organization was impressed with my fundraiser and asked if I could come up with a solution to a problem they had. I researched a concept, chased down pricing, personalized it and made a nice little profit while saving them considerable money; a win-win all the way! I knew I had done nothing that hadn’t been done many times before, but discussion of the project with friends uncovered a fresh approach that expanded capabilities FAR beyond what I had done and considerably further than existing improvements. Better yet, I quickly found that there were many other markets that could benefit, making the whole concept full of incredible possibilities.
I began working on the new approach and immediately knew that I would need a programmer and web developer if I was to get anywhere. I had a good friend that I had met 25 years ago while as a senior in high school who ran an IT solutions business out of his house. He had visited my home 10 years prior while traveling through to receive some IT award or another, and even helped finish a database project that was causing me a headache at work. I called him up, one thing led to another, and a few months later we have a new LLC, a working prototype, a provisional patent application being filed this next week, and plan to launch by end of Q1, 2013.
We are strong as can be in technology and operations, but have absolutely nothing to offer in the critical areas of branding, launch strategy or how to aggressively market our new product/service. My spark and motivation are BACK, and I am soaking up everything I can! We have one opportunity to emerge on the scene and build something, and we are determined to do it right. I am making progress in finding local mentorship, and I am here to learn all I can. I don’t generally post for the sake of posting, so if I lurk a little you can be sure I’m taking in all I can. I might start a build thread once I feel like I can share more, and in the end I hope that we have the kind of success that will allow me to contribute back to the site and help others who are starting out where I am now. Thanks in advance for everything!
Kurt
I decided to take on a fundraiser related to a new personal interest, and struggled with it the first year by begging donations off of family and friends. Determined to find a better way the following year, I came up with a new fundraising concept that generated 6x my begged donations and excited my local community. I decided to create a brand around it and bring the concept to the world, but I found out that I needed passionate, dedicated customers who could climb a learning curve and inspire others in a group to do the same… and my web development skills sucked! One does not build successful business by screening or interviewing customers and my newly created LLC just sat until my fundraising success opened a new door for me.
The sponsoring organization was impressed with my fundraiser and asked if I could come up with a solution to a problem they had. I researched a concept, chased down pricing, personalized it and made a nice little profit while saving them considerable money; a win-win all the way! I knew I had done nothing that hadn’t been done many times before, but discussion of the project with friends uncovered a fresh approach that expanded capabilities FAR beyond what I had done and considerably further than existing improvements. Better yet, I quickly found that there were many other markets that could benefit, making the whole concept full of incredible possibilities.
I began working on the new approach and immediately knew that I would need a programmer and web developer if I was to get anywhere. I had a good friend that I had met 25 years ago while as a senior in high school who ran an IT solutions business out of his house. He had visited my home 10 years prior while traveling through to receive some IT award or another, and even helped finish a database project that was causing me a headache at work. I called him up, one thing led to another, and a few months later we have a new LLC, a working prototype, a provisional patent application being filed this next week, and plan to launch by end of Q1, 2013.
We are strong as can be in technology and operations, but have absolutely nothing to offer in the critical areas of branding, launch strategy or how to aggressively market our new product/service. My spark and motivation are BACK, and I am soaking up everything I can! We have one opportunity to emerge on the scene and build something, and we are determined to do it right. I am making progress in finding local mentorship, and I am here to learn all I can. I don’t generally post for the sake of posting, so if I lurk a little you can be sure I’m taking in all I can. I might start a build thread once I feel like I can share more, and in the end I hope that we have the kind of success that will allow me to contribute back to the site and help others who are starting out where I am now. Thanks in advance for everything!
Kurt
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