Mike Chandler

So I’ve been using 5pm now for several weeks and my clients love it.

I already have a relatively interesting process in place to handle billing.  I log my billable hours in an intranet under the client’s name which calculates billable amounts by hours clocked and the hourly rate.  That data gets converted into a printer friendly PDF that gets emailed to the client along with an invoice.  It’s detailed stuff and clients appreciate it.

Combine that with the project management provided by 5pm and I’ve got me some very informed, very much in-the-loop clients that are treated like active participants in the production process.  It’s working out very well!  I highly recommend 5pm for any business that does project based work.

After weeks of searching, trial registrations, research and mild frustration, I have finally settled on what I believe is the best online project management tool available online.  It’s called 5pm and it’s easily the most solid, most thorough and most surprisingly simple option.

I tried Basecamp for a while, mostly because it’s built on Ruby on Rails which I find to be a fascinating platform.  But Basecamp was overly simplistic for my needs and the authors seemed disinterested in expanding its capabilities.  In researching the options, I found that while Basecamp had a heavy user base, they also had a heavy base of unanswered complaints.  I ditched my account and moved on.

When I found 5pm, I found the screenshots of the interface were more along the lines of what I was searching for, and this was evident before I even signed in for the first time.  The 5pm pricing plans are in line with what their competitors are offering, so there wasn’t anything surprising there.  When I signed up for the free trial, I was pleased to find everything I had been looking for, from task management to reporting.  My clients can login and view screenshots that I upload, review their specifications and view progress.  It’s perfect.  So after a few hours in my trial, I decided 5pm was the winner and I purchased a subscription.

Check it out for yourself on the 5pm website.

So… After many weeks of pondering, I had a change of heart.  I decided I would give business another go.  I decided to start out small, targeting local businesses for logo design only, leaving web design as am upsell with lower priority.  The feelings of hesitance were rising.  I wasn’t digging it like I thought I would.  I had an ad published in a local magazine, so I began to worry that I was throwing money away.

Then it hit me.  It’s not that I’m not capable of being a business person anymore.  It’s that I simply don’t gravitate to the smaller, local jobs.  I mean, it’s one thing if they come to me and they like my service and pricing.  But breaking in to that market just isn’t for me.  It was the biggest barrier and most difficult part of operating 2Xtreme Media.  And when we finally got there, it was less than rewarding.  I liked the attention, but didn’t find the work challenging and didn’t find the pricing model suitable for a multiple partner business.  That’s it!  I’m just not going after the right clients.

So I changed.  I began looking for bigger fish.  I wanted to find people or companies in need of a higher level of service.  I went in search of people looking for more advanced level needs.  I scoured the internet for ads and answered them.  I cold-called.  I emailed.  And I got business.  Good business!  And I really like it.  And it’s earning me good money.

So I’m jumping in big time.  I’ve incorporated my business and I am contemplating new advertising methods.  I’m contacting old leads and letting them know I’m here.  I’m ready… finally!

I am a failed business owner. No matter how many different ways I try to rationalize what happened when my business closed its doors, the simple truth of the matter is my business failed and as a business owner, I failed.

Oh, how wonderful it was to climb to the top. Gaining recognition at small, niche conventions like Gnomedex, to becoming the dominant local website provider for the local community. It was genuinely exciting getting more phone calls, more requests for bids, and high profile contracts for the city and larger, well known clients.

Sadly, differences between myself and my partner led to the company’s demise. Our inability to reconcile required us to liquidate and close our doors. It was a tragedy. We both have creative ways of blaming each other, but the bottom line is we never should have started a business together. That was the first failure, and one that I take 100% responsibility for. Further, when problems began to arise, it was easy for me to dismiss them. Lastly, I lost interest entirely when it was no longer fun… when it became a target for financial acquisition by the woman I was divorcing, the business became a weight, a burden, a source of true angst. It had become 100% of my identity and it was now simply an item on the bargaining table in a divorce. And I sat in submissive silence and let it all slip away. Yes, years later, I see this as my fault.

Nevertheless, people still approach me with business opportunities. They seem so eager. Of course, I’m completely hesitant. I don’t identify myself as an effective business man, while I truly used to believe that I was. I reference my failure with my business, but these people dismiss it. It’s truly odd. But I reject all business plans with my name as part of the proposal and wish these people well only to have them return months later, or have new people approach me with similar proposals.

My point? Despite the temptation to jump aboard and enjoy the thrilling ride of taking an idea and making it a business reality, I won’t do it. I still don’t believe I’m an effective business man. There’s something I’m missing and until I can put my finger on what that is, I can’t in good conscience pursue business opportunities with a partner. It just doesn’t make sense.

Instead, I’ll stick to the things I enjoy, such as my career, my family, my project cars, restarting this sorry blog and getting into media distribution as a hobby.

And so it begins… long winded posts about stuff that only I could ever possibly find interesting. Yes, blogs are the devil.