With the most recent business that I ran ( A home Automation business for 3-4 years) I found that trying to get each job perfect just killed me.
I spent an enormous amount of time supporting all the big jobs that I had done. I really wanted to get them flawless.
This just was not possible. Their are too many moving parts in a fully automated home.
I came to realise It's like looking after IT for a small business. Their are things that need to be maintained and updated. Their are also bugs in every piece of software, only some of which get sorted out over time.
The difference with IT, is that their is an enormous support network through peers, Internet, High level support agreements with vendors etc.
Home automation their was none of this. Many of the products had limited email support at best.
For example - I purchase a number of brand name 50 inch LCD's and connect a cable TV box through a HDMI matrix switch. Works perfectly on one job.
Do the same for the next job, I get intermittent problems.
That same exact model of TV may have had a different firmware or even a different mainboard even though I bought it only a month later.
I can also have similar issues with the matrix switch or the HDMI dongles.
Tracking these things down sometimes borders on impossible.
And I had access to some of the best guys in IT, process experts etc..
No amount of process could get around these problems.
Just too many moving parts.
What I found was, that I just could not guarantee a perfect experience for the client, through no fault of my own.
The client was not able to understand that their 100k of automation does not guarantee that they get no problems.
I came to the conclusion that it is either a bad business or my personality was not suited to setting expectations with my clients. (The trying to please dilemma)
In the end I got out of the business altogether as the support problems were just killing me
I was glad to get back to a slowlane job after this experience. It was like a holiday (At least for the short term).
But I now find myself thinking of business again....
I spent an enormous amount of time supporting all the big jobs that I had done. I really wanted to get them flawless.
This just was not possible. Their are too many moving parts in a fully automated home.
I came to realise It's like looking after IT for a small business. Their are things that need to be maintained and updated. Their are also bugs in every piece of software, only some of which get sorted out over time.
The difference with IT, is that their is an enormous support network through peers, Internet, High level support agreements with vendors etc.
Home automation their was none of this. Many of the products had limited email support at best.
For example - I purchase a number of brand name 50 inch LCD's and connect a cable TV box through a HDMI matrix switch. Works perfectly on one job.
Do the same for the next job, I get intermittent problems.
That same exact model of TV may have had a different firmware or even a different mainboard even though I bought it only a month later.
I can also have similar issues with the matrix switch or the HDMI dongles.
Tracking these things down sometimes borders on impossible.
And I had access to some of the best guys in IT, process experts etc..
No amount of process could get around these problems.
Just too many moving parts.
What I found was, that I just could not guarantee a perfect experience for the client, through no fault of my own.
The client was not able to understand that their 100k of automation does not guarantee that they get no problems.
I came to the conclusion that it is either a bad business or my personality was not suited to setting expectations with my clients. (The trying to please dilemma)
In the end I got out of the business altogether as the support problems were just killing me
I was glad to get back to a slowlane job after this experience. It was like a holiday (At least for the short term).
But I now find myself thinking of business again....
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