This Business and Moment...

[randomshenans]

I don't know if this is allowed, or if I'll get shouted at, but I thought it would be nice to have a thread where you chatted about just general stuff relating to work, be it your own problems you're facing, or whatever... not worthy enough stuff for a thread to itself, but somewhere to get them out/ vent.

e.g.

I'm trying to balance cash flow at the moment, i.e. I have no flow apart from it going out. We are trying to hire a SVP for sales in the US, but with no money, the 3 of us founders will have to balance that somehow.
We have outstanding sales calls for interested parties, but sales cycles are slow!
UGH.
It's been an interesting day though; spoke to a company in Scandinavia who are potentially interested in licensing our product, which could be good if it's just for the Scandinavian market, (and the money is right!) as it'd take us a while to reach there anyway.

All the while I'm contracting to keep food on the table/ money ploughed in to the business and trying not to get fired for moonlighting

*vent*

 

[randomshenans]

@tcfreer is there no where you can go in your current company? Have you looked at the ladder and where it will take you? Or is that it, you're getting up the ladder but further away from the doing, which you enjoy?

 

[randomshenans]

I spent until 1am trying to get frigging interns to do what they are supposed to. We have a few who are great. One is headed off to Google after her stint with us (not fit, before you ask) and she's as sharp as anything. She's running a mini project team for us, looking after another intern. They're OK.
One guy is really good too, he's working on our data side, and is switched on, gets things done. Only trouble is he's constantly checking in code to the master repo and not branching anything off. Even after many tellings.
Last dude, christ, my god. He's supposed to be working on UI, arguably one of the most important parts (customer sees this, so it's important), yet since Jan 5th, I've seen ZERO code. Nothing. NOT A THING! I'm losing my **** with him and not sure what I can do.
I shouldn't have to micro manage them like I am, I have other things I need to do, but our ~CTO/ VP Engineering (best developer, these guys really make me appreciate him more), is great but no man manager, so I have to manage them and him.

/rant

killing me here.

 

[randomshenans]

@tcfreer, I think that's always a bitch of a situation, choosing progression and something you don't want to do, or staying technical and not climbing the ladder...
I found myself getting tired of technical delivery and dealing with all the crap (probably due to the company I was at) which made what I wanted / where I wanted to go easier.

I don't envy you tosh, I'm fortunate in a way that my cofounders are old Uni friends and we work for nothing but equity until we can pay ourselves, but all costs come out of my pocket. I can shout at them though, which is handy, we're good like that.

What is it you're doing if you don't mind me asking?

 

[randomshenans]

Headhunting - I've done it for a decade, but spent the past few years on my own. Suited me perfectly, very little in the way of overheads, good clients, a lie in every morning, was taking 3-4 months off every year and travelling or sodding about, and generating decent billings. Not much future in the self-employed headhunting game long term, but decent enough for right now.

The girlfriend kindly informed me that I was putting on weight and becoming a bit of a slob, which wasn't incorrect. So 4 months later I'm bogged down with a bigger mortgage, a 6 week property refurb which was taken 16 weeks, rent on an office and an employee to look after. Bloody girlfriends.

Didn't you work in recruitment for a bit earlier in your career? Seem to recall something like that - if so, what made you change?

Good memory I thought you were in headhunting but the building part threw me.
I was in headhunting myself up until 2008 I think it was. I was working in London for a small company who put all their eggs in the Middle East construction, which took a massive hit when the market went severely south, and none of our clients could pay, which meant my company couldn't pay me. Which was nice half way through the month.
Decided I needed to do something different as people weren't hiring headhunters at the time, so changed careers into IT.

Partners are a pain... look at what she's gone and done!? What industry do you work in? I've done Life Sciences/ Pharma, Construction and Engineering. Normally around the 100k salary base.
I considered setting up on my own at one point, as I did some freelance stuff for a small period. Even bought and setup torchlightsearch.com haha

Alas, times are a way from that now.

 

[randomshenans]

Doing what @Ricochet?

@Tosh - Never done the banking sector, but imagine it's a nice one to work in. Good luck with it all! Sure it'll be worth the hard work.

Our stuff is going OK, we were put under pressure to raise money by an accelerator we were in, but it would have meant getting really expensive money (bad % given for what we'd get) so we've just continued to bootstrap it out of my pocket.
We're on v0.98, just about to release v1.0 once we've pushed a couple of new features and have one university in Utah as a beta customer and another Uni (UVU in Utah) I'm talking to about a sale. As soon as we get a couple of sales in, we'll be cooking! Sales cycles are slow though, months to get a decision made.
On the flip side, I was approached by a company (middle man consultancy) who are working on behalf of BGC3 (Bill Gates Catalyst 3) a company he set up to pursue things he likes. So hoping we'll have our software demo'd to him on 24th of the month. It's all kinda going the right way, but I'm contracting to pay for it, as otherwise we'd be broke lol

Rock n roll

 

[randomshenans]

Ha thanks TC.
I was worried as I heard nothing back from them for a few days so was thinking I'd jinxed it, but heard from them over the weekend, so here's hoping it's all good still.

So many time you get nothing for being loyal. I found if you want something you have to ask for it. At least they then know your expectations, and you know what you need to do in order to get it. It'll never (or rarely) given to you out of love.

I had an initial conversation with a sales guy on Friday. He's currently regional director at a company we are integrated with, so he knows all of our customers. He was really interested in what we're doing so we're going to set up some time to do a demo etc. I'd love someone like him as a Senior VP Sales, then work out how to pay him. We're really missing a pure sales guy now we're at the point where we can sell. I just can't do a good enough job over here.

 

[randomshenans]

Haha I'm just building a SharePoint Training Program for my "day job" and doing a wonderful PPT supporting documentation at the moment. It's about as fun as it gets. FML. This place has killed SP for me.

Edit: Hope it's not bad news Davey. What sector are you in?

 

[randomshenans]

I had to have a one to one with one of the interns we have as he'd done nothing in like 2 months and it got beyond silly. He's supposed to be working on the UI, but did nothing and it's what the customer sees, so it's kind of important!

I like our simple UI:


But there are changes I want, for options etc. where they need to be updated, so he's started getting those sorted finally today. We will see how it goes...

 

[randomshenans]

lol I've just heard my day job contract is looking like it'll get the chop. Which is a bit of a bitch. Might need to find a way to pay myself until the start up brings in any money. Or maybe it just puts some serious pressure on actually making some sales...

Ah well, you can't stress about these things.

 

[randomshenans]

Ah man that's a gutter!

We haven't heard anything yet, but they're on Pacific Coast time, so I'll just have to wait and see...

 

[randomshenans]

Still heard nothing. I even woke up like 3 times in the night to see if I'd got an email. Ugh.

Will try and be cool and just see what happens.

I did get an email this morning, which was a great buzz...



And we have meetings with Arizona State Uni and Utah Valley Uni next week. These long sales cycles are killer though.

 

[randomshenans]

Agencies are utterly useless and it's more about the numbers/ what matches what they have on the books.

What sort of role are you looking for? You may want to tailor your CV to highlight the transferable skills etc. over going for a course like that, seems pointless unless it's a constant pre req, but I can't imagine it.

 

[randomshenans]

We had another person contact us today about a sales role, and I happen to know the company she used to work for. They do analytics in our area, as their CPO and COO are mentors of mine. I asked them about her and said she was really good, just given an impossible territory to sell to. Anyway, call with her tomorrow and Friday have a demo scheduled with Arizona State Uni.

My contract job is looking semi OK, but a whole group of developers I worked with just got the can. Most of them were in startups anyway and can afford to just work full time on those, so no big deal but seems there are a lot of cuts coming.

I want to be based in the US; it make sense from a business point of view startup wise, so I was talking to a mate of mine in Seattle. I'm going to see if I can get a genuine job over there, full time style with his help, which would then put me where I need to be for other work.

That's my Wednesday rant away anyway.

 

[randomshenans]

I think you're doing the right thing. Sounds like this will end up being your role and while you enjoy some of the aspects of what you're doing, you don't sound like you're learning or getting the relevant experience to help your professional development.

The thing is it being at this amount of time, you have more explaining to do for your next role... or at interview. You can always say that you were missold the position etc. but some might take this as a negative. Either way, you hold out for 5 months or something and look, or you get the ball rolling looking and see what comes up and then cross that bridge when you come to it. I'd do the latter.

 

[randomshenans]

Christ never tell them that haha Just use this position to step hopefully into a much better next one.

 

[randomshenans]

Written a new CV. Always good practice and my last one was awful.

Regardless, it'll be good to have something just in case.

Other side note, my wife's new business has started well. She's had 2 bookings scheduled. Her business is: https://www.facebook.com/harpermaes (in no way promoting, it's just easier than writing it!)
She's looking to build out the business here, get some local ambassadors to help run the parties, so she can then build the business in other cities too. Not bad going for first few weeks in.

 

[randomshenans]

I'm totally spamming this thread but I don't care, it's been a busy but productive week.

We've got a really good sales director from our partner company, who really wants to join us. Took him through some more tonight and he's going to think of sales strategy against our business needs and talk monday.

Also, we've just received verbal confirmation from Arizona State University that they want to use our solution. And demo requests from 2 other universities and a college. I'm drinking bubbly right now in celebration to a tough but fruitful week.

 

[randomshenans]

A analytics solution for learning management systems, for online learning.

 

[randomshenans]

Working from home this week as my wife is in the UK. Trying to juggle working all hours and 3 kids, including an 18 month old, is great fun! You become very good at scheduling