Month: September 2016

I think collections is one of the most unpleasant aspects of owning a business. Very frustrating when people refuse to pay even though they acknowledge that they should. I try as much as possible to collect upfront to avoid the headaches of fighting for what we’ve earned later.  I wish there was an easier mechanism for managing this… I have thought about using escrow for all payments but I think that takes another 2-3% bite out of revenue.

​Americans are only starting new businesses at half the rate of the 80s. More people would start businesses if regulatory burdens (biz licenses costs $800 per year in CA, healthcare and many industries artificially limit new competitors). http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/st-louis-is-the-new-startup-frontier/

​http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/11/opinion/sunday/before-you-spend-26000-on-weight-loss-surgery-do-this.html

One thing I have noticed is that my motivation (and stress) seems to really ramp up during the fall and winter. Summer is a bit more relaxed. I can feel my fall time drive starting to really kick in! Working late and working every weekend as usual.

When I become stressed out, I really struggle with treating people as well as I want to treat them. If I am angry, frustrated, or stressed I don’t have patience and I don’t work with people in the best way.

I need to be more conscientious that I am not the only one who struggles sometimes and even when I have a tough time, I need to work to treat other people well.… read more “Kindness”

I spent my weekend building a new time report for my team that I called the “NA Report”. I still need to set up unit testing for it though before I take it live.

 

It will be another busy weekend for me! This morning I am doing some planning for Coalition and hope to get a little bit of programming done on my tools. At 2, I will go rock climb at Cliffs of Id with my friend Scott then at 6 my wife’s grandpa has his birthday in Pasadena.… read more “Weekend Priorities”

Travelling can be tough because it pulls me out of my healthy habits. Thankfully, I don’t have any more travel planned till Christmas time. I like to get my healthy habits going like:

• Going to bed early
• Running or going to the gym
• Working on my programming
• Working on improving Coalition
• Talking to family and friends

 

I am thinking about this idea for my team members:

Available only for critical employees

Based on annual revenue – if the company earns $1m a year today and $10m a year in 5 years, that is a 10x increase to the bonus
If employee leaves (resignation or termination) prior to vesting date, no bonus will be paid out
Once the bonus is vested, the employee can cash out when they please.… read more “Phantom Stock Idea”