On December 23, 2009, Normal Modes officially celebrated our 6 month anniversary. (Still true, but irrelevant.)  On June 23, 2010, Normal Modes officially celebrated our 1 year anniversary.   Whew!  We made it!

We originally intended to mark our 6 month anniversary with a series of posts about lessons we’d learned.  We wanted to mark the important milestone of our six month anniversary by sharing a few lessons we’d learned over the course of the first six months, as well as share a few wonderful resources that helped us out along the way. What we didn’t quite grasp is how busy we were to become beginning in January.  So, unexpectedly, this post was delayed.

The previous post focused on the personal change of becoming an entrepreneur. Today’s post, the second in the series, focuses on getting the company off the ground and finding clients.

Starting a company is like drinking from a fire hose.

Wow. It’s been more than a month six months a year since I wrote the post about how I started Normal Modes and a new work lifestyle.  In that time, I’ve heard from at least one person each week, often by email but sometimes in person, about how the post resonated with their own experiences – in particular the loneliness of working from home.  Thank you all for your kind comments and feedback – they’re most appreciated.

Lest you think all my time in the first 6 months was devoted to personal pursuits and adjusting to my new lifestyle, it was decidedly not. It’s a lot of work getting a startup going and finding clients. I likened it to drinking from a firehose.

Business Formation & Legal

In addition to developing the Normal Modes website – which I’ll talk about in a later post – I spent a lot of time in my early days just getting basic business and administrative matters in place.  Setting up the company and sending the state their money so you can become official is almost inconsequential in terms of time.  It has to be done, and luckily it’s relatively easy.

If you don’t know how to do set up a company, many attorneys will offer a package of documents for around $1000. This is worth the investment if you either a) don’t have a clue about what’s needed and have the money to spend or b) if you plan to register as a historically underutilized business or some other special situation.  In the latter case, you’ll need additional corporate documents that the attorney usually includes in their package.  In the case of Normal Modes, the company is 100% owned by a woman and plans to be certified with the Women’s Business Enterprise Alliance (WBEA) in 2010, which opens some opportunities allocated under corporate vendor diversity programs. (We’ll see how that goes – I promise to write about it.)

The other important service a good attorney provides is in writing contracts.  I’m a pretty methodical and logical person, so I thought I’d be able to cobble together my own contracts based on others I had available to reference.  Be ye ye not so stupid. Or cheap. Seriously. A good attorney has seen it all and will think of scenarios and protections which would not occur to you unless you’ve had a bad experience.  My contracts were decent and sounded good before my attorney reviewed them.  Now the contracts are tight, protect me (and, at times, my clients), and just AWESOME.  I feel confident when I give someone a contract now.  You should too.

My other piece of advice?  Allow yourself like time.  Contracts, like websites, all have an urgency  rating of “immediately!” but take awhile to put together.

Administrative Overhead

There’s a lot to be done the first days of a business, and almost everything you touch is something new.  This means that there’s no template, no standard, no reference for all the tasks we’re accustomed to taking for granted.  As a result each wee little task, if begun from ground zero, is orders of magnitude more difficult to knock out.

Contracts – for both clients and subcontractors – take time to fill in. Proposals take anywhere from 1.5 to 12 hours to complete, depending on the level of complexity of the project. And don’t even get me started on accounting and money. (I’m saving that for the next post.)

In short, administrative overhead at the beginning of a business venture accounts for a considerable amount of time.  Be patient.

Office Supplies – Another Unexpected Administrative Lesson

When my husband and I bought our house, we made multiple trips a day to Home Depot.  There was so much we didn’t have.

When you start a new business, you make multiple trips to Office Depot. And here’s the thing about office supplies you don’t have: they’re expensive. Pens are expensive, especially if you have specialized ones you like to use for your work.  I’m more conscious about using the printer, not because I’m a tree hugger so much as that printer paper and – more importantly – printer ink, are expensive. Those giant tape balls I used to make to blow off stress? No more.  Tape is expensive.

I have newfound empathy for my former employers who, during cutbacks, first attacked the office supply budget.  The waste in most corporate environments is institutionalized and a by-product of lacking awareness.  If I had employees, I’d spend the extra money to put stickers on each office supply, reminding us of the cost.   Waste not, want not.

When it pops, it pops.

After the initial euphoria of starting my own company wore off, I was anxious about prospects of success. Business was slow throughout the summer. (Remember I began the company in June.) None of the proposals I prepared went anywhere. (I’ve since learned that this was just part of the standard lead time.)

And then, literally in one week in the fall everything changed.  It was as if I’d prayed to God for more work than I could handle and the Big Guy called my bluff. This, of course, is a happy problem to have. Under a tight deadline and with more work than I could handle, a former co-worker started contracting with me to help out. I discovered that while there are a lot of website design companies, there are precious few who specialize in the user experience work we do.  Of those who do, 99% are full advertising and/or interactive agencies with project budgets that greatly exceed our minimum requirements. Normal Modes fills a niche that larger companies, by their nature, cannot. It’s the best type of situation – everyone wins.

Final Notes

As I mentioned in the intro, this piece took me more than six months to get online, and I want to make sure I don’t muck it up today by not having a nice little closing.  So I’ll finish real quickly with my advice to anyone looking to start their own company:

Do it!

Prepare to work your ass off.  This is a labor of love.

Have fun – running  your own company is a blast!

The other day I was grabbing a salad and some spring rolls for lunch at an upscale grocery store in Houston. I used my debit card to pay, which is an almost daily exercise for most of us. Entering my PIN and clicking through the screens is such an ingrained habit for me that I probably perform it through pure instinct and muscle memory. Well, I ran into a snag.

Typically, the debit card screens run through the following progression:

1. Swipe card.
2. Enter pin.
3. Do you want cash back? Yes or No. If no…
4. Is this amount OK? Yes or No. If yes…
5. Voila. I’m done.

This particular store’s machines work differently.

1. Swipe card.
2. Enter PIN.
3. Is this amount OK? Yes, No, or Cash Back.
4. Etc.

Whaaaaat? I wasn’t even paying attention, and I clicked “No” in step 3. Which meant that “No, this amount is not OK.” What I intended to say was, “No, I don’t want cash back.” The machine brought me back to the beginning of the process.

Apparently the machine’s GUI designers decided to combine two screens and therefore save their users a click. I didn’t save a click, though. I had to start all over.

Consider, please, the Principle of Least Astonishment (POLA), which states that “when two elements of an interface conflict, or are ambiguous, the behaviour should be that which will least surprise the user.” So for software GUIs, users form expectations based on their experiences with similar software.

The debit payment interface I encountered is a perfect example of why it’s so important for your design to conform to your users’ expectations. Saving a click is good practice — most of the time. But if your GUI’s behavior is counter-intuitive to your typical user, you’re just going to cause frustration and wasted time.

Resources about POLA

Principle of Least Surprise
Steve Smith
stevesmithblog.com

Principle of least astonishment
UXPassion.com

Applying the Rule of Least Surprise
Chapter 11. Interfaces
History of Interface Design on Unix

The cranky user: The Principle of Least Astonishment
Peter Seebach
For IBM.com

Most Astonishing Violation of the Principle of Least Astonishment
stackoverflow.com

On December 23, 2009, Normal Modes officially celebrated our 6 month anniversary. We want to mark this important milestone by sharing a few lessons we’ve learned over the course of the past 6 months, as well as share a few wonderful resources that helped us out along the way. Today’s post, the first in the series, naturally focuses on how Normal Modes came to be and the personal side of escaping from Corporate America’s “stability” to embrace the path of entrepreneurship.

How’d I End Up Here?

Upon graduating with my master’s degree from Rice in May 2008, I found myself restless in my career. I loved my time at a major airline working on compelling, and at times really complex projects like booking engine UIs, usability studies (which I adore), and alternative forms of customer interaction (gate displays, handheld devices, etc.). As an international studies undergrad with a master’s thesis in China, I also enjoyed the freedom to travel that my time at Continental Airlines afforded me. Nevertheless, there were drawbacks, in particular the poor salaries brought about by the bad economics of the airline industry and little opportunity for meaningful career advancement.

If I wanted to change and to capitalize on my recent master’s degree, it was time. In August 2009, after a final trip abroad to see friends in England, I left Continental.

I joined a hedge fund as a project manager with a significant boost in salary and daily responsibility/accountability in September 2008, one week before the stock market collapsed. You know where this is going. In the Spring 2009 – the same week we closed on a house – I had a sense that my time with the hedge fund might soon be ending.

I knew the job market was particularly tight, so I started laying the groundwork for starting my own company by working after hours on portfolio building projects. Once my 50+ hour work week at the hedge fund was done, I went home, had dinner, and started working on usability and UX reviews of other websites. I’d only recently finished graduate school while working full-time, so extra the hours and workload weren’t anything new. We unpacked enough boxes at the new house so that we could find the essentials. Everything else had to wait.

On Monday, June 22 I left the hedge fund.

On Tuesday, June 23 I started Normal Modes.

Adjustment Period. Heavily Punctuated with Loneliness.

The first three months were an adjustment period. At my old job, I’d had lunch with my team at the same time each day, but now I was often home alone without other human interaction all day long. I was terribly lonely. At one point I applied for an entry level job I thought I might be able to get simply because I’d have some people to talk to each day. I considered working part time for Smith & Hawken while they wound down operations, just so I’d have human interaction. During a particularly bad week, I walked to the grocery store each day with a fictional list of “must have” dinner fix’ins, mostly just to talk to the check out clerk.

The loneliness wasn’t all bad. While I am historically a homebody, now I was happy to attend social events in the evening. My husband was thrilled. Suddenly his wife was an extrovert.

There were other changes too. After a couple of weeks, I found I was happier – genuinely happier. No doubt this was partially a result of resolving my sleep-deprived state, as well as doing work I genuinely enjoyed. Once again, I had time for relaxing projects like knitting and photography. And with time at home to plan and cook, I made us healthy, nutritious meals. After many iterations, I even perfected my ratatouille recipe.

I looked upon this time as the opportunity I’d always hoped for: the chance to stop using “work” and “school” as my excuse to not exercise. With my schedule under my own control, I had no reason not to exercise. After meeting a personal trainer at a friend’s house, I joined the gym and hired him to help me get in shape. It was the last possible gym I thought I’d join – a meat-head gym with huge body builders – but the people there are wonderful and I look forward to seeing them each day. This, too, helped ameliorate my loneliness and contributed to my well-being.

Then Came the Anxiety…And My Benevolent Guide

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to moments of overwhelming anxiety and fears that no one would ever hire me.  Who did I think I was – at 35-years-old, never having been an entrepreneur – opening up my own company?

My constant companion during the initial days was a just published book – Escape from Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur- that served as my guide. The book’s author, Pamela Slim, uses equal doses of encouragement and reality to shepherd converts in their transition.  She walks you through the basics of what you need to know before making the leap – including evaluating your business idea, distinguishing the fantasy of entrepreneurship from the reality, financial and banking basics, and telling your friends and family. She does it all with an infectious good nature – you feel like she’s on your side. (Lord knows you’ll need that.)

Winning the first deal also helps with the anxiety.  Once I had confidence Normal Modes could land a contract and make a respectable sum of money,  optimism about outstanding proposals and the next contract grew. Just as anxiety feeds itself, so does measured optimism.

“Work Attire”

I’m not going to lie – most days I work from home I look like a hot mess. Invariably I go to the gym at 7am, come home, start working and before I know it, time’s flown by, it’s 6pm, and I’m making dinner still dressed in my gym clothes from that morning. There are few days I actually need to shower, apply make-up, do my hair, and put on nice, grown-up clothes. On the days I do get dressed*, I always return home and promptly change out of my “good clothes” and into my “play clothes” like I did when I was a kid. Except these days, after so many years in the workforce, the budget for “good clothes” completely displaced that for “play clothes” and I’m left wearing 10-year-old purple monkey pajamas. The good news there is that after 6 months of steady use, all my “play clothes” are looking a bit worse for the wear. In the next 6 months they’ll have to be replaced and I’m sure I’ll be in a real pickle then: everything will be “good clothes.”

*Getting dressed is now something of an inconvenience.  I could be working! I never thought I’d say that, but it’s true. When my husband was a grad student, I gave him undying grief because he wore in the same green robe all day long, busily writing his dissertation. And now I’m no better.

A Few Other Perks

• Work from anywhere. Since I’ve started Normal Modes, I’ve worked from Dallas, Florida, Central Texas, Austin, San Antonio, the beautiful Texas Hill Country, Chicago, Wisconsin, and Iowa. I work from coffee shops, restaurants, libraries, hotel rooms, and in my dedicated home office with a fat white cat sleeping in my lap.
• Flexibility. While I basically work core business hours, there’s a tremendous amount of flexibility built in there. Friend needs a ride to the airport at Christmas? I can handle that. Ideas aren’t percolating like they should? I can go for a jog in the beautiful sunshine. Cats have a vet appointment? I can take them in for an hour in the morning and be done with it, rather than spending time before and after work with pick up/drop off and have them freak out when they get home from a day of boarding. I know other telecommuters who will happily share they’re on the way to their kid’s school play, that meetings are scheduled around pick up, or that they’re eating dinner out with the family and will call when they get home.
• Convenience. The heat’s broken, but I don’t have to worry about taking time off work to meet the repair man. I can continue working in my office while he does his job in the attic. If I need to run an errand, I can do it when traffic is light instead of during rush hour. Grocery shopping at 8am Tuesday morning is so much better than doing it on Saturday afternoon.
• Savings. Because my daily commute is the walk from my bed to my office, my husband and I are able to share a car, cutting our transportation expenses.  The more expensive clothes in my wardrobe are my work clothes, but since I don’t wear them as often they don’t need to be replaced or dry cleaned as frequently which also saves money.  I usually only eat  lunch out if it’s business (and like dating, a business lunch is preceded by a business coffee), so I save money by eating at home more often.  These things all add up to a fairly substantial savings each month.

And Finally, The Biggest Bonus of All

I love my boss – she’s my favorite person in the world.

Key Take Aways

Starting my own company has forced me to grow in new and exciting ways. I’m so happy I got off the corporate track (even if there are things about corporate life I still appreciate and admire), and embraced the path of entrepreneurship. I should’ve done this a long time ago.

1. Loneliness is normal. Everyone I’ve talked to who starts working from home says the exact same thing. More than a few of them have also walked to the grocery store to talk to the check out clerk.
2. Wage war on anxiety with equal measures of preparation and reality. Find a good guide to help – I recommend Escape from Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur to start off.
3. There’s business casual, and there’s work from home casual. Pajamas are the new suit.
4. “Work” is what you do, not where you do it.
   
5. You’ll love your boss.
   

But all was not personal time & discovery. There was a lot of work to be done. The next lesson from our first six months: Drinking from the Firehose.