On Deck

The first project I will be writing about is like going to be one of the most fun which is a pretty darn good start. I have been commissioned to design and build a custom baby bassinet. Since I just had a baby, I find this really exciting and it also fills me with a slight sense of guilt since I didn't make her anything really cool like that. Maybe I'll make two just in case we have another one. 

Since I left my engineering tools back at the moldbuilding shop almost a decade ago, this is turning out to be challenging brain puzzle of weights&measures, strength of materials, and physics.  The arc on the feet of the rocker is quite a balancing act.  Also, a lawsuit for faulty design for an injured baby is a topic that could raze my new company to the ground and then some.  Not that I am going to build a crappy bassinet for dropping babies, but when the bough breaks the cradle will fall and down will come baby cradle and all.  What if this lady is messy?  Clumsy?  Negligent?  Do I make her sign a waiver?  Do I go purchase an extra insurance policy and drive all my prices up for one little cradle?  Should I just walk away?  OR, do I run on the faith that any expecting mother interested in a handmade bassinet must be good, fit, responsible parent, and my well constructed and thoroughly engineered baby rocking tool will all hold up and and everything will be just fine.  Screw it.  I'm making the darn thing, becuase I believe that Love can conquer any obstacle.  Plus, it is going to be fun.

Look forward to sharing it with you.

The idea is

I just started my own business and will be doing restoration work on clients homes.  These projects will likely have a large range of different things that could be useful for any capable homeowner.  I have been considering going into business for myself for quite sometime, but honestly never had the guts to go through with it.  Maybe I still don't.  I was persuaded gently by my gf that I had the talent to do the things I was doing for people on my own.  Her gentle persuasion is a force beyond my resistance so here I am at the beginning.

The first project is starting a business.  One must know things that I know nothing about in order to start a business.  I am learning as I go so I thought sharing with others might be helpful as well as the do it yourself home fixin' projects I'll later share.  That is if the petty details don't bore you to sleep while you are diligently supposed to be working in your soft grey cubicle.  So far I have a name for company with a signed letter from the Secretary of State Mark Ritchie himself!  How cool is that?  The other thing I have is some skills with wood and an idea.  Oh, and I have lots of questions.  Should I have a tax ID number?  Should I incorporate?  How do I market myself?  Why the hammock am I doing this? 

I did start writing a business plan.  I learned so much about how much I don't know it scared me.  There was an excited feeling of maybe I can really get rich if I do everything right, mixed with sheer white panic when I imagined all the ways I am going to utterly fail my company, my family and myself.  I swallowed hard on some cold coffee that was sitting neglected on the end table next to me and just kept filling in the blanks of the business plan.  And I realized that the business plan is the first tool you need to have to find success.  Its the guide you make for yourself when facing a long dark path with unexpected twists and turns, so that you can find your waythrough the turd filled swamps without losing yourself.  I recommend everyone to write one.  About life.  I think it could help people keep track of their long term goals.  I might even write another one just for me and my bliss, so I will not lose track of who i am while I am all mixed up trying to run a company be in a healthy relationship and take care of that new baby needing food and poopy pants who is now crying over there.  Life never goes by the plan, but if the plan is to live successfully, you might find success in life if you remind yourself how to handle your own strengths and weaknesses with a little reminder of who you are and what you stand for.  As I have mentioned to others before me, a favorite quote from a great writer Joseph Campbell, "Follow your bliss."  I am trying every day to follow mine.