Don't litigate over meaningless details

I ordered business cards the other day. I probably spent 1 hour total doing the graphic design for them; fairly basic stuff. Nothing to get hung up on now. What I'm looking for is just something that I can hand someone and it will be something official so that they will take me seriously, and it will be functional so that they know who I am and how to contact me.

I only ordered 250 cards so that if I do get more serious about the design and want to make it more impressive, it's not a big loss. And I'll have to re-order within the next 6 months anyway and if the company has evolved at all that will be reflected in my business cards during the upgrade.

The cards I got aren't even that great, I'm not super impressed with how they look, but they are professional enough. They are NOT printed on Avery paper with perforations and floppy paper, but they are only one step above that.

1. Would I change them? Yes.
2. Do I think it is worth it to change them right now? No.
3. Am I glad I only spent an hour designing them? YES!!

Don't let yourself get hung up on these details, there are more important things to worry about.

First Tip: Don't start a BLOG!!

Whenever you find yourself doing something new, taking on a new task, getting distracted, etc., take a minute... (sometimes several are needed) and ask yourself:

1. What is my end goal and is this going to benefit me in the long run?
2. Will the outcome of this task be worth my time to myself and my new company?
3. How can I complete this task most efficiently?
4. Can this somehow be a tax write-off??

I'm justifying creating this blog because I really don't have any idea how to start a company and I'm much better at communicating and formulating thoughts via written language so it will be a benefit to me to get my thoughts into writing so that I can go back on them later and more easily discuss them.

Playing Catch-up on the last 3 months...

Since I just got the idea to start the blog I think I should recap some of the key items that I have gotten done over the past few months.

The concept for my company is not new. Like I said, the childhood dream is being an "inventor" so that's where this idea comes from. And seeing my creations come to life, as well as the prospect of independence is the enduring motivation.

Now for the fun details...

My Flagship Product!
My first product I had the idea for while I was taking a break at work and trying to find something to take my mind off the job for a few seconds. So it is a game, and like I said I'm not going to be able to divulge what it actually is until it's actually released and I'm comfortable, but it is a novel 3-D board-game that (I hope) looks absolutely stunning when set up so that it will make a great desktop game, coffee table game, conversation piece, etc... So this product is giving me the motivation to start a company and will be my flagship product that will get most of the attention in the first year.

The Name Game! (I've finally got one!)
The first thing I did was write down lists of abstract words and concepts, (shapes, sounds, colors, etc. that pertain to the product) philosophies that I'd like to retain, my name and my wife's name and all anagrams thereof and anything else that sounds good. Then reading through them a second time gives you a pretty good idea as to whether they are actually good or whether you were just tired and silly when you wrote it.

Don't forget to check if the domain name is available, and also don't forget to check if the trade name is already registered with the state. If you want to trademark, don't forget to check the trademark office either.

The first name I came up with was a short one-syllable anagram of mine and my wife's initials followed by the word "design". I purchased the webspace (it had a "-" in it... oops..) and I sent in my trade name request to the state. ($50)

Always send the trade name request (and get it approved) FIRST! Or do your research on whether or not it is available.

Needless to say, after creating a simple logo in Photoshop (on which I probably spent no more than 1.5 hours), implementing the logo onto the product packaging, starting a bank account in the new business name, and purchasing the domain name, I got the trade name request back and it was denied! There was a company with a similar name and apparently even if the name is slightly different and the function of the company is different, they can still deny you the name.

So the second time around I did a little more research, didn't find any similar names, sent in the trade name request and got it approved!

I found that the Citizen's Bank at Stop & Shop is open late so I can go there to change the name at 6pm when I get home from work.

I'll have to keep playing catch up in a later post. And at some point these posts will get much shorter so that I can give you a briefer update (so you don't have to read as much) and still get some work done.

Enter: The Chicken Entrepreneur

A "Chicken Entrepreneur" is a term I recently came upon that describes my current endeavor. This is a person who would like to start working for themselves, but is just a little too chicken to quit their job and take the leap into uncertainty. I'd like to start this blog as a detailed account of my entrepreneurial attempt to create my own company during the wee hours of the night and in any spare moment I can snatch up.

I'm a 27-year old mechanical engineer with a wife and probably a young one within the not-so-distant future. So I will be juggling, for your entertainment and education:

1. Family life
2. Romance
3. Finding a house to settle down in
4. Eating, so I don't perish
5. A full-time job (a one-hour commute from my apartment)
6. And everything that goes along with starting a business
7. Oh yeah... and writing a blog.

FIRST TIP for the chicken entrepreneur:

DON'T START A BLOG!!

These are precious moments that I could be getting work done, but I'm going to try it so that I can document my progress and also attempt to give YOU a first hand account of what really goes on, and some tips from things I've learned along the way (usually the hard way).

My company and products will go nameless until I've reached a comfort level that I'm not yet at, but they relate to and support my childhood dream of being an inventor. As an engineer I'm pretty close to fulfilling that dream, but there's something lacking, some degree of independence that I don't have and will never have working for someone else. I work on consumer, medical, and military products for a small design firm in Massachusetts. But the projects are inherently not my own and that's what I'm looking to gain. That, and the financial and temporal independence that everyone wants these days, at least us "Millennials" that can't stay put for more than a few years and incessantly strive to improve our lives any way we can. Which means that no matter what, we always ask for and expect just a LITTLE bit more than we have.

So stay tuned and hopefully we'll all learn something through this!