Happy to have found these boards. I've been looking for a place to discuss business related issues, put idea out there and so on. I find it very helpful to put my ideas in writing and get feedback on them. Plus if my experience can help someone else, all the better!
About me: I am a broadcast engineer, I build maintain and move TV stations along the East Coast. I love my job, but for many years before I got it I was self employed and loved that even more. I've been looking for a way to be independent again for a long while now. One of the smaller contracts that the company I work for has had is installing digital menu boards for big franchise chains, mostly fast food, but some others as well. From working on these, and seeing the amount of money being spent on them I realized that there must be something very beneficial to businesses to invest so much money. Combining that with the idea that most stand alone restaurants and bars, and even small chains do not have the in-house capacity to install or manage such systems but could greatly benefit from them, and with the fact that the technology is rapidly getting cheaper and cheaper (much faster then most people realize) my wife and I founded ForeSail Media about a year ago. I handle the technical stuff, she does sales. She is really awesome at it too!
We've had a series of set backs and mis-steps as is usual for a start up but we're gaining traction now and I"m getting pretty excited about it. We've spent a lot of time canvassing our customer base, just talking to them about the idea and getting to know their needs and desires and what they would accept as a price point, not to mention scoping out the competition, such as it is. I pretty much found out which way everyone else was trying to go in similar businesses and went the other way entirely. So far so good. We are hopefully moving into the phase where I can start planning the transition from full time job to full time business, although that will be a long process.
I still have some technical hurdles to overcome, and we're ironing out the marketing plan, but the feedback from customers has been entirely positive, they all love the idea. That's not the same as buying it of course, but we're working on that now and it's going well so far.
I'm looking forward to having a sounding board for ideas, and hopefully contributing as well. One thing we learned from earlier business ventures is that in a small one or two person business it is easy to get trapped in your own little echo chamber and convince yourself of your own brilliance. Outside, objective advice can be invaluable to prevent otherwise obvious and costly mistakes!
About me: I am a broadcast engineer, I build maintain and move TV stations along the East Coast. I love my job, but for many years before I got it I was self employed and loved that even more. I've been looking for a way to be independent again for a long while now. One of the smaller contracts that the company I work for has had is installing digital menu boards for big franchise chains, mostly fast food, but some others as well. From working on these, and seeing the amount of money being spent on them I realized that there must be something very beneficial to businesses to invest so much money. Combining that with the idea that most stand alone restaurants and bars, and even small chains do not have the in-house capacity to install or manage such systems but could greatly benefit from them, and with the fact that the technology is rapidly getting cheaper and cheaper (much faster then most people realize) my wife and I founded ForeSail Media about a year ago. I handle the technical stuff, she does sales. She is really awesome at it too!
We've had a series of set backs and mis-steps as is usual for a start up but we're gaining traction now and I"m getting pretty excited about it. We've spent a lot of time canvassing our customer base, just talking to them about the idea and getting to know their needs and desires and what they would accept as a price point, not to mention scoping out the competition, such as it is. I pretty much found out which way everyone else was trying to go in similar businesses and went the other way entirely. So far so good. We are hopefully moving into the phase where I can start planning the transition from full time job to full time business, although that will be a long process.
I still have some technical hurdles to overcome, and we're ironing out the marketing plan, but the feedback from customers has been entirely positive, they all love the idea. That's not the same as buying it of course, but we're working on that now and it's going well so far.
I'm looking forward to having a sounding board for ideas, and hopefully contributing as well. One thing we learned from earlier business ventures is that in a small one or two person business it is easy to get trapped in your own little echo chamber and convince yourself of your own brilliance. Outside, objective advice can be invaluable to prevent otherwise obvious and costly mistakes!
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