A week ago today, I finally became an entrepreneur and business owner. It’s been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember and thanks to a serendipitous opportunity and the partnership of an old friend, it’s finally come true. And no, it’s not the ‘start-up’ I’ve mentioned in previous discussions and blog posts.
Working with one of my closest friends, Connie Giordano, we finalized the purchase of the website TECHWR-L.com. Tech Whirl is a site for technical writers. As of now, about 80% of it’s membership and volume is through a long running email discussion list, but website presents far more long-term opportunities.
Connie has been a very active member of the email discussion list since 1999. The previous owners reached out to a number of active members, including Connie, asking her thoughts on what should be done with the site in the future. Connie asked me to brainstorm with her. There’s more here but I’m unsure at what point our NDA kicks in for the purchase.
Soooooo … let’s skip ahead to last week when the purchase agreements were signed, checks were mailed and passwords were handed over. Yes, we bought the site on April Fools Day. Yes, I plan for next year’s April Fools Day to be … epic.
What about castles and Lego like structures? It’s still there and moving forward but without me as a major player. The king is dead, long live the king.
The last week has been a lot of fun. Connie is Editor-in-Chief, while I’m handling the IT, Finances and in time, business development. This week and next week, I’ve been learning the site, making UI changes and trying to understand the underlying technology.
Late last week I posted on Twitter that I was fighting a penguin and the penguin was winning. Hello – Linux. Thankfully, while my aptitude for foreign languages is, uh, limited; my ability to learn coding and software functions (and be able to apply them) is much better.
It’s early days, and to be honest, my dream isn’t just to own it, but to be damn successful at running it. But, for today, it’ll be enough to celebrate owning it.
