Not One But Two Cool And Almost Exactly The Same Positions

So I had an interview with a company on Monday that is starting up a website for entrepreneurs. The idea is that they will help them with a one year plan to take the business to the "next level". The interview was great and the business owner and I had a good conversation.

It would require commuting to Toronto, but I’ve done it before.

So just this morning I did my regular job search and what do I find? Another company in Toronto who is hiring for almost the same position with the same business model in mind! How every unusual. I’ll send off an inquiry, sounds good.

On the other sites (monster.com; procom.ca; wowjobs.ca) there’s just the usual suspects of PM roles, noting that really sparks my interest. I may have to lower my expectations of the "awesome, cool, fun" job to a more realistic, "job job", but not just yet. I’ve got one decent idea to get some job leads, but it won’t happen for about a week.

The more that I think about the website for entrepreneurs, the more I like the idea. When I was "younger" I had many business outlines written down. I had one for a mail order business (before the internet was even close to main stream) for selling fossils; another one marketing this speaker device that swore (there was a "G" version too). Somewhere in the basement are a few small binders full of these plans. I remember seeing it a few months ago while tiding up.

I’ll have to look at them again to see how many of those ideas are now other people’s business!

Internet Development to Internet Security

My business model was about to change.

When I started to develop these back office interfaces, I was opening up pipelines leading to the internet from "secure" areas. These databases that were feeding the websites needed to be secure. As a complimentary service to these clients I started to do some free, but detailed internet security audits.

One client was so pleased at the service that I was recommended to another company and another and so on. This was still a small part of my business but it was growing.

As the back office software companies started taking back their business (and locking me out by making the mutual fund dealers sign contracts that "outside" access of the databases would be in violation of their agreements), I needed to find other sources of income. It seems like I was getting into internet security whether I liked it or not. Fortunately I liked it.

Internet security audits were happening on a more regular bases, but they didn’t provided me with a predictable income. One thing that I learned as a stock broker is that mutual funds are a great investment for both the client and the broker. As a broker, I would get anywhere between 0.10% and 1% of the investment (called a trailer fee) each year. I wanted to same thing for internet security.

I developed a subscription based web site security service. Clients would "register" any software product and they would be immediately notified when there were any security compromises. They would be provided with patches or work-around. Alerts would be sent out via email or SMS. It was a really cool service, but it was not drawing the attention that it needed or deserved. I think it was a bit too ahead of its time.

I took too much time on the subscription project and ignored the larger security audits. I eventually got to a point where I could go forward with internet security, but it would require an upgrade in my education (obtaining official credentials and certificates). As a comparative alternative I also started looking for "regular" work.

Web Developing to My First Business

Building my website and making the pages for the mutual fund companies was fun! More and more people were starting to use my website. I also found out that I was one of a very few stock brokers who actually had a website. At the same time there were some changes happening at the brokerage firm.

I was hired to develop a pension area and I went at it full-force getting anything and everything ready for its launch. I interview companies for outsourcing the management; created marketing material; got designers and printers to create and print samples; everything. Then all of a sudden I was starting to hit and see "road blocks". Management wasn’t as receptive to my contact; it was getting more difficult to get approval. After a few months of this I tendered my letter of resignation and I was done with being a stock broker.

Sitting at home I figured that I needed a job and I really didn’t want to go back to being a stock broker, too much bull-shit, many promises but few deliveries. Updating my website, I figured that this internet thing had potential, after all others were commenting about the site and Netscape’s IPO did well.

I registered my first domain name and opened my doors!

D

Getting to this point - Part Two

Ever had your stomach fall out? I have a few times, or so I thought. Earlier this year (in the Spring) my wife was surfing the internet. Every once and a while she’ll Google my company to see if there’s anything new and interesting out there. When she did this time a Google Ad came up with another company doing something exactly what I was doing.

This is not a complete surprise as I keep up to date on the competition. This was different. I went to the company’s website and started to read more about them. Hummm....they are based in the same country as my supplier...wow even the same city.....hummmm....some of this text on the site seems too familiar. I checked the Whois (www.whois.sc/domainname) and my eyes and stomach confirmed what my heart suspected. My supplier/manufacture completely ripped of my business model right down to some of the text.

That day I must have called my supplier about a dozen times (he’s half way across the world) and sent a couple of emails. When he finally got in back to me the next day his was scrambling for answers. First he told me that he didn’t know what I was talking about.

Then I quoted him his website and domain name.

Next he claimed that the business had not launched and that he was going to tell me about it.

I told him that his story was bullshit. He registered the domain name *many* months ago. Actually it was soon after I can back from a successful trade show and told him how well things were going especially with retailers.

Now he’s telling me that he’s not competing against me because he won’t be selling in Canada. Gee how nice of him to set-up an identical business and leave me with 2% of the world’s market.

More later.

RL

Getting to this point - Part One

So this journey has got me to think of my job search in a different light. With hopefully many others soon reading this blog you’ll want to know more about me. I’m not going to post my resume, but I will be providing you with more information about me.

Let’s start off with how I got to this point.

With the start of a part-time business (when I was working full-time about five years ago) I re-kindled my entrepreneurial spirit. I started my Virtual Beverage Store (no, I did not run a beverage shop, I’m using this as a substitute for my actual business, but the experiences and events are factual) about a year after starting a Project Management job at a large Canadian Bank. At the time, I really didn’t like the commute from the city to my town about two hours away.

The business game me an outlet for my more "creative business" side. After leaving the bank, the part-time business became full-time. I took advantage of a government program that allowed me to extend my unemployment benefits while getting my business off the ground.

After getting things ready for the business, beverage mixes (the general idea was that someone could "create" their own drink from common flavours and I would make and send it to them), branding, packaging and everything else that would be needed I opened up shop online.

I also held a few "open houses" at private locations where I would invite the public down to see what I had to offer, to try samples beverages and to show them how easy it would be to create their own drink. One of the "areas" of the business was tea. When I had my open houses there was general interest in everything, but the teas seemed to attract more people than any other area. This happened a few time and before I knew it I decided to focus on just tea!

I took a few months to re-brand the company and focus on tea only. This turned out to be an excellent idea. I also sourced out a new supplier that would meet my specific tea needs. Some of the requirements were that the tea must be organic and that the people employed in the tea process must be pay fairly and treated ethically. This was not part of my marketing mix; it was a reflection of my own beliefs.

The focus turned to be an excellent choice. Over the course of the next two years, I would receive attention from over two dozen publications from all over the world. The UK, South Africa, the US, France, Canada, USA, Japan all wrote articles of various length about the "custom tea" business. I even was featured in a national US business publication and TV show.

I seemed to have a decent nack for marketing. Services like HARO and ProfNet made my job easier, but it was still up to me to convince a journalist that I was a worthy story. The brand that I created was unique, the packaging was polished. Almost no one would believe that all of this was created by one person if I told them.

The business also started to get attention because it was "green." I did not intend to create an environmentally/ethically friendly company, but it certainly helped that it was.

As the business started to take off, I was actually making money. It was nice! Money is great to pay those pesky bills, mortgage, feed the family and stuff like that. I even attended a major trade show in the second half of 2007. There was intense interest with the business because I had a method of selling my tea in stores. The stores didn’t have to carry an inventory so it could be inexpensive for them to start selling my product.

Things were going well, but that was all to change.