Catching up!

OK guys! I've been out of it for a little while but I wanted to catch you all up on what's going on here. I'll do a video shortly but I've spent a bunch of time working off and online to keep things moving. I set some goals to visit some potential locations which forced me to make some phone calls and get out. Then I came back to a location that I had looked at a year ago. Why the layout isn't perfect and there are things I'd like to do with it, it is a month-to-month gross lease at less than I was thinking I'd have to pay. So I've put in an application and I am currently waiting to hear back. I setup my LLC (Polished Stone, LLC) and I'm going to use that with some DBAs for all of my businesses.  I setup a bank account and applied for some loans.  The credit union wants collateral so I may put my car up with a title loan but I've been looking at some other options.  One is kickstarter.com and the other is prosper.com.  I'd rather take an unsecured loan with a higher interest rate since I don't need a ton of money.  I'll post on those later once I have some better information and give you an update on my experience.

Things are moving along and I'm hoping to get underway in August.  I'll keep you posted.

Creating Habits with Rootein.com

So I just found out that my last couple of videos were too large to send and were sitting in my phone out-box so they haven't made it to YouTube or here yet. I'll have to remedy that tomorrow, but today I wanted to take a brief minute and share a new app I've been trying to use to help me get into proper habits. It's called Rootein (at http://www.rootein.com) and you basically go in and setup the tasks you want to track. You can set them to send you automatic reminders daily, and even bug you if you haven't done the task in 3 days. So far I've been real impressed with the service. The mobile version is perfect too. The didn't try to do too much but you can do everything you need to. The other cool feature is that the emails they send you as daily reminders also have special links in them that you can click to mark the item as finished so you don't even need to log in to the website. Just thought I'd pass that along until next time.

Ask a question or share a business experience!

I want to hear from you guys! Ask questions either here in the comments or comment on the "ask a question page" or send me an email at dreamer50k@gmail.com. I'll post a response to your questions, or share your stories to help inspire others!

Getting back into things...

Sometimes it takes a bit to get back into life after a break. This might be a break because we slacked and didn't keep up with our goals, or it might be because of something like a vacation. Either way we need to stay focused and get back into it. I heard someone say once that if you are working on something that you are trying to do every day, it is OK to miss a day once in a while, but don't EVER let yourself miss two in a row.



What do you think? How do you get back into life when you have lost focus?

The pros and cons of vacation and owning your own business

While on vacation I had good and bad realizations... While a part of me said "I could really get used to this!" another part was saying "Well it is nice to know that my paycheck won't suffer from me not working..."

What you can do to overcome a project block

Sometimes when you are starting a business or working on a project you might hit a wall and not want to keep working on it. There are a few things that you can do to overcome this block - lets see what they are.

Ask yourself 'Am I being PRODUCTIVE?'

So often we waste a TON of time working on things that have no real value or it isn't worth our time right now. When you are working on starting a business you need to stop every once in a while and ask yourself "Am I doing waht is most important?" This question alone will help you accomplish more to meet your goals.

Test your ideas simply and fail quickly

Whats in it for you?

I just had this idea. It probably won't amount to much, but I've decided that for every person that donates more that $3 I will (with approval) put their information on a "business founders or investors" page. The info would consist of any combination of Name, Email, Biography (or business bio including business name), and/or Website URL. Yes I guess technically I'm selling links space, but the content on the page will be more than just a link to your site, it could potentially give you leads if you have business info or a personal biography. You could be known as someone who helped start one of the greatest companies in the world, or maybe just someone who helped start a company. Either way this page could lead to valuable information about you or your business in a place that may generate genuine respect.

Why am I doing this this way?

On Monday (Sunday is a family day) I'll be back to talk about why I am jumping right in using a free blogger account to start this experiment as opposed to creating an awesome looking website with way better features. (In fact I did start doing that and decided I needed to just pull the trigger...) It has something to do with failing fast - but I'll get in to more details on Monday!

The goal is now set...

Well I've set the goal so help me live up to it. It wasn't easy to do though - I guess that means that I took the exercise seriously and didn't just pick something. Help to keep me honest!

Setting Goals

OK, Pulling the trigger

I've been thinking about this for over a week almost non-stop and its to the point that I either need to do something about it, or drop the idea. I started setting up a website but in the end decided that this would be the fastest way to see if this experiment works. Check back daily to see the developments on both the business side and how I deal with quitting my job and moving forward.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog and thanks for coming to visit. I am so excited to start a business that I can't wait to save enough money on my own. This is why I'm asking for people on the internet to give just a few dollars so that I can make a difference in my community. You can learn more about me and the business on the perspective pages on this blog, and I will continue to post daily updates to keep you informed of the progress of our business. Thanks in advance.