Almost 10 years ago, another woman entrepreneur and I started a tech company on a shoestring — as in (almost) no money.
That’s me in the picture signing the incorporation documents. Look at how young I look. =-) And yes, that is Zoe (oxygen tank and all) in that stroller next to me. Anybody who knows me will also recognize my office setting of choice — Starbucks.
It was an interesting time indeed. I hadn’t been married very long to a man I hadn’t dated that long. And we had just moved into our new house one week before our baby came home from three months in the NICU. There were a few things going on.
But you never know when opportunity is going to knock and I’m one of those people who doesn’t sit around wondering if I should open the door.
Interestingly, my new business partner was somebody I hardly knew. She had partnered up with another woman I knew who pitched me as a logical addition to the team. My connection fell out of the equation early on and there I was with I partner I’d known a mere matter of months.
I like to joke that my partner and I went out on a blind date, and ran away and got married. Just like you sometimes see in love, it just worked. We’ve always understood each other, and been able to support each other with few words.
Had it not been for the fact that our company was a real estate technology company with a brand new technology that most realtors didn’t quite get the hang of before the market crashed, I think we’d be headed for an early retirement. As it was, we crashed and burned along with the market in 2006-ish (it’s such a blur now). The company we built, however, was pretty damned impressive for two chicks and a technology.
Fast forward to today. The great recovery to the Great Recession is very slow in coming. A lot of people have decimated retirement accounts, zippo in savings, maxed out credit cards and upside down mortgages. But they still have ideas and entrepreneurial spirit. They either want or need to start a business for supplemental or primary income.
My former business partner and I want to write a book to share the things we learned about launching a relatively sophisticated company on a shoestring. The intended audience is somebody with no experience and little or no money, but with an idea or at least an interest in starting a business (we’ll provide some tips for discovering marketable ideas, also).
With this intended audience in mind, we have come up with a couple of title ideas and we’re looking for input.
What else? We’re interested in hearing all ideas. Leave them in the comments. Please also share this post/poll with your own networks. We want as much feedback as possible. Thank you!
