Birth of a writing services business

What happened?

It was sparked off by the convergence of two major events in my life. The first was the fact that the technology company I worked in for many years, closed down. Most employees (including yours truly) were laid off (under generous terms, so no need to feel bad), while a few were kept on to tie up loose ends. The second event was my turning 50. Yes...that magical number did something to me.

Why writing services?

I had been toying with the idea of doing something independently for quite some time - and the confluence of these two events presented the opportunity. I felt like “it’s now or never”. So after a brief experiment with an idea I had for a startup (that quickly died in an Excel spreadsheet), I took the direction of writing services. Why writing services? Well, I had plenty of experience writing different texts in the various positions I held over the years. Many of those years were in Product Marketing where I engaged in a variety of writing assignments from web content to technical RFx proposals. I remembered how much I enjoyed putting the finishing touches on a writing assignment - and how proud I was when my submissions to industry competitions won prizes for my company.

Technicalities

So I went about the technicalities of setting myself up as an “Authorized Dealer” or “Osek Murshe” as the term goes in Israel. This meant opening files with the different government agencies - Internal Revenue, National Insurance and VAT. I got myself a great accountant who briefed me on everything I needed, and in fact he handled all the beaurocracy. “Hey presto” - within a couple of days I was ready to do business.

Infrastructure

Or was I? 

Here I am. Come on. Bring on the business. Don’t push. 

So...no. It’s not quite like that as we all know. I need to set up my web presence and let the world know I exist (which is one of the points of this blog of course). So first I got myself a logo designed on fiverr by a great graphic designer called actualreviewnet. He also did the cover photo for my Facebook business page (yes, please go ahead and “like” it).  Then I needed a website. So this was my project for a while. I went with Wix because they provided the best tools and templates, for someone as graphically inept as me, to create something that looked half way decent. And since my business cards were delivered last week, I can now say that my infrastructure is done.

Lessons learnt so far

So I'm ready to go, and already have me a couple of great customers. Even in this short time, I've learnt a few valuable lessons:

• You can get some great quality work on Fiverr. It makes starting a business affordable under any circumstances
• Go to meetups - they’re really interesting, you meet people who are really doing stuff and they’re great for networking
• When out networking, keep your business cards loose in your pocket so that you can whip them out easily. Don’t futz about trying to extract them from ill-fitting holders.
• I’ve got so much to learn.