I wanted to share and start a new topic - How to build a great business! Iâm probably one of the oldest people on this forum and have ran successful business ventures since 1984. There are certain concepts in business that will always be there - and although individuals will have outstanding ideas, the sad reality is they donât understand how a business actually works.
For example - they can create amazing website templates, but have not really researched how that type of business will work. Therefore, their templates whilst amazing, do not sell in quantity, because business people need more.
I would like to post some ideas and observations on this new topic, and the idea is just to try and help YOU get the best from your technical expertise and make that work better for you.
In order to be able to help anyone who might read this topic, then I need to go back a while in time. The âfoundationâ of my business was paper and pen. It was speaking to people, engaging work from them, and starting to build a basic network. Everything was using paper, print and a calculator if you needed one.
We had a phone box - not a mobile phone. We had post and not email. We spoke to people.
The 3 basic aspects used in a business then was:
Talking to people and building up a client portfolio.
Being honest, trustworthy and decent.
Printed materials like business cards, letterheads and invoices.
As time progressed, my first interaction with dare I call it a computer, was using an Amstrad CPC 464. Amiga was out then as well, but before then we did have Binatone were you could play Ping Pong
But my first real computer was an IBM PS/2. It was huge and weighed a ton. At that time Windows was out - 3.11 for Workgroups and suddenly I felt like I was a programmer working with DOS and BASIC commands. 7 floppy discs later and you had Microsoft Windows - now it is whatever LOL.
The PC took forever to start up, and moving the machine around felt like moving a bag or two of cement. But here I was entering a new technical age. We had dial up internet which took forever, but eventually we could be best buddies of MSN.
We had mobile phones - they had keys and you could call someone at some expense.
We felt like the apes coming out of the trees and now becoming masters of our own destiny.
But âhow to build a great businessâ was still the goal. These shiny new improvements were lovely, but you still needed to have endurance, determination and something else. You needed guts!
You needed something that technology alone cannot give you, because what I want to teach you (or at least discuss) is that you are in control - not the machine. I will add some more posts on this topic as the weeks go ahead and hopefully admin approve, and someone, somewhere might find them useful.
Have a nice week my friends - best wishes 123 Simples.
Oh wow, when you started your first business venture, 4 years still need to pass until am born⌠looking forward to hear your insights, as I am sure that life thought you tons of lessons.
I am just âgetting startedâ, creating my own businesses for 10+ years, so I am looking forward for your posts about your business experience.
Regarding the topic, in my opinion, starting a great business is though, it is a lot of work, passion and also luck. Most people underestimate the luck part. But I think that luck is more than 50% of the total.
What do you guys think about the luck factor in business?
Thank you for your compliments - The IBM PS/2 Model 80 was released in 1987, and I remember buying it in 1990. The weight of it was 23.6 Kg (52 lbs.) and it was just like a colossal brick! By standards back then it probably was expensive, but I done a great deal with the seller, so I was happy.
Then donât let the rules change YOU or your business. AI is a âthingâ - a bit like so many other things that capture the attention of stupid people for a while. As a web designer we are constantly pitting our skills against for example âwebsite building platformsâ. BUT guess what - these are still limited, and people sign up for them, âbuild a so-called websiteâ and then wonder why no one ever gets in touch with them.
Whilst the rules are changing as you put it, the fact is people will always need real human beings to build, design and maintain their websites.
What you need to do is show that YOU are worth more than some random fly by night AI - believe in your skills, believe in yourself.
Time is just time - yes I started in 1984, and your post suggested you were hatched in 1988 BUT we all have something in common - we are always striving to be the best in our own professional fields. Yes life and work experiences teaches us all how to adapt, grow and change. Whilst luck might factor into the equation, you are your own master of destiny too.
You can either work hard and perhaps suffer set-backs, or you can work hard and achieve to some degree. The alternative is you give up and wallow in silence when you have real gifts you should be using!
I agreeâbut too many jobs have been lost. My sales have plummeted by about 90%; Iâm barely selling anything, and Iâm living on debt at this point. Last year, around this tim,e I made about $10k; now Iâm barely making $1k. Nothing major has changed with WordPress itself, but a lot of companies have closed because some CEOs focus only on profit. AI can help me improve my work, but it canât replace what I do. Unfortunately, many CEOsâespecially those who arenât developersâdonât see it that way. In tough times, the worst thing for a development company is having a non-developer CEO; that company is very likely to fail.
Look at Envato: in my view, pushing Elements undermined the marketplaceâfirst killing stock sections like AudioJungle and others in a few months, and now the code side. Hichame Assi followed the subscription trend without understanding what really drives Envatoâs ecosystem. To be honest, Envato might have been better off with no CEO at all, or Collis should have handed the company to us authors to take care of it. But money and greed are always first on the list. In my book, Collis is a cowardâwe built an amazing place, and he left with a shitload of money, never thinking of those who helped make it.
Long story short, many jobs are being lost due to AI and short-sighted leadership. Major players are promoting âvibe codingââcoding without real knowledgeâwhich wonât work, even with very powerful AI. You still need to know what youâre doing. Ask ten random people on the street what they think about coding and probably 8 will say itâs âdeadâ because âAI does everything now,â including some with a bit of dev background.
This mess feels intentional; the money these AI companies are making is enormous.
I think things will get really bad before they get better. Until most people truly feel the impact, these companies will do and say whatever they wantâand nobody will stop them.
I disagree - certainly with the 50% being just luck. Having a great business involves creating opportunities through mindset and actions, rather than relying on chance alone. Therefore âluckâ is a function of the number of opportunities you create. A lot of entrepreneurs seem âluckyâ because theyâre constantly looking for opportunities.
But you were correct in saying having your own business is a lot of work, and you need to be passionate about that business. Which you clearly are
So going back to my start in business life - it wasnât in technology. I actually started a cleaning business from nothing. I had no customers, I had a some basic cleaning equipment, and I went out and knocked doors. I picked up 5 customers in the first day, cleaned their windows on the 2nd day and then knocked doors on the 3rd day.
I repeated this for a cycle for a year, leaving printed leaflets at people who were not in but all the while growing a business.
I chose âlocationsâ and premises - it was a case of blanket dropping leaflets everywhere. I targeted the properties I wanted to do - not the crap no-one wanted.
Within 1 year I had a sustaining business, within 2 years we were employing people and by year 3 I was venturing into commercial work.
To be fair the saying where there is muck there is money is true.
But at the same time, I was doing all our accounting. That started off with paper and pen, then when Windows (Microsoft) came along, so I used that, and I just enjoyed learning new skills.
Excel, Word, Powerpoint and Access will great tools to use for a new business. Then Adobe released programs like Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Fireworks and these were great learning curves to work with.
Then we had dial-up internet - oh my god thinking back now that was life draining, but at the time a 56K modem making screeching sounds and then suddenly seeing a website on your monitor was amazing.
Nowadays we take it for granted, and we switch on and instantly can access anything online we want.
But back then (circa 2000) I was delving into building my own websites. They were crap! Responsive design then wasnât even a thing, and when I think about the things I did or built, I shudder now with embarassment. BUT what we were doing was âlearningâ. I was learning how to use Photoshop, how to create PNG files with Fireworks, how to put together a website. And all the time, I researched books, studied and worked my way forward.
By 2007 I had already built several websites, and people were coming to me asking me to build them a website. How did they find me? I still used printed stationery - business cards. Iâd leave them around places, Iâd hand them out to friends, post them on noticeboards, even run a few printed adverts.
Even today (despite having multiple websites online) we still use business cards. Of course our websites are a bonus because you reach outside of an immediate area, but never underestimate business cards - they still work!
I am thinking on the possible âbranches of our livesâ.. meaning what would our story be if we would have chosen different choices back in the daysâŚ
For example, what would your story look like today if you had never knocked that first door, what chain reaction do you think you would have missed without realizing it?
I suspect that your life would have looked a lot different now.
How would my life have been without Lyme disease and COVID? I would have been the GOAT I try not to think about it too much â itâs depressing.
Any advice from a man who has suffered through hell for almost 15 years and lost so much that some traumas now feel like good memories?
As long as you have your health and your freedom, you are a rich and fulfilled man. The choices you make are your own â own them and make the best of them. I think career-wise we made the right choices, but things went a bit cuckoo lately. Either way, it will get better again; Iâve been through other crises before.
Very well put - of course life is a chain reaction. As @tibi_diablo has also commented:
I think one of the greatest philosphers said something like:
âI think, therefore I amâ.
Now that could be taken in any way, shape form or fashion but it is also about changing that concept into a reality. @tibi_diablo - I do believe it or not understand how COVID affected people. I had to know my brother-in-law was on a ventilator for 12 plus weeks, and yes it has changed him dramatically. I also spoke with friends across the world who said about lungs looking like shards of splintered glass.
But the point here is our brain is the most powerful organ in our body. If we have positive thoughts, then sometimes this can help things get better. If we dwell on negativity, then nothing will get any better.
Building a great business -
So after 2007 I basically was always keen to learn more. My Adobe skillset was growing, and when I didnât know something, I either read a book or asked Google the question. Dreamweaver was at that time the main kind of software used, but I was delving more and more into the code view.
When I think back now, seeing lines of code was âwhat the hell is thatâ but now, itâs just like reading normal text on a screen. I suppose if I had to try and put it another way - think about shorthand. I was learning a brand new language, and that is pretty amazing. I wish I could learn Spanish, French or German as quick as I seemed to be able to learn HTML, then Classic ASP and PHP.
BUT we all have something in common - we are always striving to be the best in our own professional fields. Yes life and work experiences teaches us all how to adapt, grow and change. Whilst luck might factor into the equation, you are your own master of destiny too.