When I started my consulting business on July 1 of last year, it was because I had been laid off from my previous job. Rather than take a job in one of the many offices around town, I thought I would make a go of it on my own. I was truly looking forward to the challenge of running my own consulting firm. My old boss (who is a great guy, btw) was allowing me to take some clients with me, and you don’t get the chance to do that very often. It was a dream start, and I was excited.

However, within the first month, it was looking like medical insurance was not going to happen thanks to a last minute change in the rules here in Ohio. While I had seven clients, I was not pulling in enough work to really sustain my family just yet. When my old comrades at Optiem offered me a position, I jumped at it. We needed the stability at home, and they were willing to work with my schedule. I was going to try to keep my own business going while working a full time job.

So, by August of last year, I was trying to keep up with the clients I had, work 40+ hrs a week at Optiem, work on Podiobooks, keep up with my family, and podcast. Needless to say…I was working a lot. So much that I began developing some pretty bad carpal tunnel issues by November.

By January, it had become apparent that I would not be able to continue like that. Still…I didn’t have much choice. I stopped taking on new work entirely, and began to try to work with my clients to mitigate the problems I was having with my hands and still try to get their work done. We were pulling long weeks at Optiem working on IdeaCrossing, and I was still trying to get PB situated on new servers.

By March, I’d hit a point of near collapse. One of my GD projects was running far, far into the red because of an unanticipated Flash issue, and the work at Optiem, while rewarding, was not letting up. I was in pain most of the time from the carpel tunnel, even though i was doing everything I could to rest my hands. I felt like I was going mad. During this time, I stopped with the podcasting almost entirely.

Then I was asked to put in for a position at Mahalo, and I got it. This was wonderful, though I miss Optiem, working for Mahalo has been a real treat. (more on this in a future post…nothing but love for my peeps at Mahalo)

Things were finally starting to look up…the majority of my contracts were finished except for two. One of those was transitioning to a new firm, the other was still running long. I would spend nights and weekends trying to get the second one done after working to get Mahalo up and running.

Finally, I handed off the long-running project to the client and sent them my bill. Within two days, I got a note, informing me that they would not be paying me because of issues which, up until that point, I had never been notified of. Despite one piece of the project running long, the rest of it had been delivered on time, and, according to my contact, working perfectly. The letter informing me of nonpayment was a blow, to put it lightly. I was lucky…I was working full time, but still…I had been working for months on the project, and to have it pulled out from under me at the last second was infuriating. I contemplated a legal battle, but in all truth, I was tired. So very tired. My exhaustion won out over my pride. We verbally worked out an agreement where I would be paid for some of the work, and went our separate ways.

April and May saw trips to Los Angeles for Mahalo, and we finally launched in the beginning of June. My final client was transitioning more slowly that we liked, so I flew down to Virginia for training with the new firm. A new developer was assigned, and thing began to move more smoothly after that.

My contract with my final client ended on Saturday. I have no clients now.

It feels wonderful.

I learned a number of things about myself and the world of business in the past year, but I also have to admit that this past year has been the most difficult of my life. I want to thank everyone out there who was there for me when I was about to fall apart, and to my group of gaming and podcasting buddies, who were always there to offer support or just an ear to listen. It helped more than you will ever know.

So…do I still own the company? I do. I’m not going to fully close it down, but I don’t want to take on anything new for a while. PB is due for an overhaul, and I want to do something OTHER than code. I have stories I want to write, digital art I want to produce, music I want to play. I want to get together with friends, and also play some games when there is time. maybe travel a bit and go to some conventions. Perhaps I’ll take on new client work in the future; smaller, more limited jobs. I’ve learned much about my mental, emotional, and physical boundaries through all of this. I plan on putting those lessons to good use.

Would I go into business again? Yes. I would, but with partners. I’ve learned that I work well on my own, but there are not enough hours in the day to sell projects and write code effectively. Some people can do that, but I’m not one of them. I can do either…but then something else suffers. No…I need to work with at least one other person, preferable two, if I were going to make a run at some sort of business in the future. It may yet happen.
But not for a long while.