Go Logo!

So we have a name, now we need a logo. The name Terrapin means sea turtle or it does to me, some say it means regular turtle. So I am looking for a turtle/mapping based logo. I actually am throwing a hundy at a logo design company to see if they come up with anything decent but I have a lot of industry expertise at my disposal for this. For one thing my good friend here in Dallas, lets call him MamouDogFace, is a VP of marketing, has degrees in graphic design and artsy stuff and is basically like a professional free-lance photographer so is like, really artistically minded. He, for example would be able to come up with something better than the lame-assed kiddie scrawl I came up with (at left).

Actually the concept of a sea turtle with a map on its back I rather like and if it looked like a cave drawing I would accept that as well but I am still hoping something else will emerge. I was going for cave drawing but with MS Paint you can only get so close to what you are envisioning. That should be their slogan: "MicroSoft - kind of close to what you are envisioning, almost every time." Anyway, as near as I can tell, MamouDogFace is pretty excited about the project so we'll see what he comes up with. The nice thing about working with MamouDogFace as opposed to some of my other friends is that MamouDogFace is not a heavy drinker, so I don't have to buy MamouDogFace enough whiskey to float his entire carcass just to get him to work for free. The one regret I have about MamouDogFace is nicknaming him 'MamouDogFace' in this blog, as it is tricky and arduous to type. These are the difficult things a small-business owner has to face every day though, and I feel I am equal to the challenge.

In addition to MDF there is my business partner, Chakka who is quite adept at this type of design but of course if I allocate him to the task, he is not working on Important Things like getting the business running and spell-checking my blog. He will be a great editor and idea generator for the logo but we wont occupy too much of his time with it. Nor should I be occupying too much of my time with it as there are many other things for me to work on as well.

More on Logos later . . .

Whats in a name?

The problem with naming a company, apparently, is that there really isn't a single name that gets buy-in from every person you ask about it. In fact, in shopping names around, I actually seldom got more than one person to agree to any one name. You see, as soon as you ask someone about a name, they stop listening to you and begin to offer suggestions and if your name doesn't happen to be one of their suggestions, the person you are talking to is usually not interested any more. Here is how a typical conversation would go:

Me: I need a corporate name for my new business
Nancy: What do you have so far?
Me: Stuff like Geospire, Terrapin, Archipelago or possibly Trowbridge.
Nancy: How about "Forward Model?"
Me: I don't know, doesn't sound like a company name to me.
Nancy: Its a great name!

Me: Because you thought of it?
Nancy: Added bonus!
Me: I need something serious.
Nancy: How about Jumpin Jer's Spanktastic Gorge-matorium?

And so on.

Finally I settled on Terrapin and tried selling it to people who were involved with the project. Basically anyone who had not already offered a name thought it sounded pretty good but Chakka was not on board. Partially I think because naming the company was an indication of control and he was not ready to deal with the idea that we were not really equity partners, I think.

In the end we polled fellow members of our professional community, especially people who would probably be involved with the company later and we got exactly mixed response. I mean right down the middle. Half wanted Archipelago and half wanted Terrapin. I was trying to be open minded about it but Terrapin had been the brainchild of my wife and I just loved the concept of putting a map of the western hemisphere on a sea-turtle's back for a logo.

Yes, turtles are slow moving and not a great logo for a tech company. But the thing is, I always hated jumping around like my brooks brothers wrinkle-free business casual button down collar shirt had suddenly caught on fire every time a client called to mention that because we had mis-classified a 30 ft by 30 ft parking lot in our data they were pulling the contract unless we could fix the problem in the next 30 minutes. I say 'no.' The world doesn't work that way. We move purposefully towards a goal and we achieve it in the timeframe that we are comfortable with.

No, we are not lazy. No, we are not slow. But we are accurate. We are precise. And, we are graceful. Our Brooks Brothers shirts do not catch on fire because we work at home and often, we are still in pajamas by 10:30 am. But pajamas or no, we will work through midnight and beyond to get the job done if that is required because we are always at work. Do not forget the parable about the tortoise and the hare. Slow and steady wins the race.

We are Terrapin Geographic.

A Plan Comes Together

By December '06 quite a bit of scheming had been done. One of my subordinates had mentioned interest in joining my venture and with some wrangling I was able to make him redundant so he could get a package as well. For the sake of anonymity we'll refer to him as "Chakka" and more will be spoken of him later.

Later is now. Chakka had been a marvel of technical expertise at the former company. I'll not lie that I hadn't reveled at the idea of bringing him on board as I also knew him to be a hard worker and quite dedicated when properly motivated. What I forgot to mention to him was that I was envisioning inviting him to join me primarily as an employee with special benefits and some ownership in the company because he had the faith to join me so early. He had the impression we'd be equal partners which we would have been had we been putting up the money together. As it is, I'm not asking him for any money. Truth to tell I think he is still a little bent out of shape about this but when the revenues start rolling in I am hoping all will be forgiven. He's a good guy with a good heart so I expect he'll be gracious in our success and not bitter.

Just to be sure I checked with a number of different sources and my logic isn't crazy. When deciding who gets what in a new business the money is usually 50% of the equation. Connecting money to an idea is actually quite difficult and this was pretty much my job. I had single handedly connected money to my idea, not because of my idea so much as because of who I know, so I had money and I had an idea. Thats worth 50% in the business world. I needed technical expertise - I also have this in my personal portfolio. Problem is, I am not going to have time to exploit my own technical expertise and why should I when Chakka is better than I am at what we do? It would take me a year to get my products up to his standards and he was ready to hit the ground running. So, in the business world, the technical component of the company - what gets the product out the door, this is worth 20%. Yes I could do it myself so giving Chakka 20% wasn't exactly necessary but at the same time, he is my friend and its not all at once. Its incentive based so that he has to make a 5 year effort to really cash it in.

If Chakka backs out, all is not lost. I have been scheming with a company in India to produce the bulk of our products. Even with their help, I am still planning more automation than we had ever envisioned at Megalocomm. So Chakka and I began meetings and brought in a friend which I'll refer to as "The Wookie" who works in our industry but was very interested in our venture. Currently he doesn't have any designs on the company but if things really take off it would be worthwhile to get him on board as a shareholder because this dude is sharp and he can really make things happen when it comes to managing data such as ours. Actually The Wookie recently moved to the Denver area, which is perfect because my wife and I have been planning to move up there for years and the plan is finally starting to materialize, so at least the Wookie and I will be in proximity, even if Chakka is in Portland.

So throughout December things are going pretty well. My Brother in law (the aforementioned money) has offered to look at our business plan and being independently wealthy scoffed at how much I needed to get things going. He said it would be a pleasure not only to back us financially but to offer his expert business advice as well - which means a lot. This guy is whispered about in business circles, he is big time. On December 31st I vacationed through my last day with Megalocomm, quietly driving across a snow-blasted landscape in Nebraska trying to get to a Poi Dog Pondering concert in Chicago that night with my wife and newborn son. We had even lined up babysitting. Of course if you know anything about Nebraska on Dec. 31st of 2006 you know we never made it. The snow was feet deep and even in my trusty X-terra we were only making about 15 mph. This of course was quite impressive as most of the other cars on the road were completely stranded. We ended up in a fancy hotel in Omaha. Nice place. I toasted the new year and my new company.

How it all started . . .

Well, here it goes. Most of the peeps I know are constantly asking about how my new company is going. I usually say "its going well!" and leave it at that but it occurred to my brother (for the sake of anonymity we'll call him "Nancy") that much time could be saved by simply directing people to a blog where I would chronicle the story of the new company. OK, fine. Of course once you begin a project like that, it kind of takes over and before you know it you are dealing with the next great American novel. The last thing I wanted to do was become an accomplished writer!

For those who know me, there will be certain terminology that may seem confusing. Because I am not sure that its a good idea to tell the full story of my new company including details about working for my LAST company I am going to change names, locations and most of the facts about where I used to work as I chronicle my story. For the sake of the blog I'll call the old company "MegaComm."

OK, so most of you know the first part. I was cheerily working as middle management for MegaComm after my former company, "Megalomegacomm" was purchased in January of '06. By March things looked fairly well tip top. I was being encouraged to pursue my business plan which involved utilizing some research monies to develop new products and I was considering how to expand my personnel in such a way that would be worthwhile rather than merely increasing the workforce. In other words I wanted to hire programmers to create more automation instead of skilled laborers so that my work force's effectiveness would multiply rather than merely increase in an additive fashion. Soon afterwards I was called up to company headquarters in "Pennsylginiaware" for a so called important meeting and some further orientation and leadership training. OK, fine.

The leadership training was actually useful. I wont go into it but I am glad for the increased knowledge. The important meeting was to let me know that it was the intention of our new company to reduce headcount in my department by at least three persons. Naturally this would cripple us. Since our headcount was only seven, all of whom routinely put in more than 40 hours per week it simply wasn't realistic to reduce headcount any further and I immediately began to consider my options.

I certainly argued the point. I illustrated that our revenues exceeded our costing by over 45% and that usually meant that we were doing well (sarcasm intended). To this point I was told that individual departments were not being examined but that Megalomegacomm was making reductions across the board and that nothing could be done. I perceived that there was new business and new products on the horizon and made a good faith effort to win over our new company to increase our headcount instead of reducing it but my heart wasn't really in it. By August I had managed to get my name on the redundancy list. They were reluctant to let me go as they correctly perceived that I was not only the leader of the department and the only managerial level person who understood the products but was the sole sales lead for the products as well. In the end they decided that it didn't matter if I left because they didn't find our business attractive. I'll be shocked if the department still exists in a year.

My main reasoning for leaving was that I had no interest in running a department with 40% of the personnel I needed and further to that point I didn't want to work for a company that made such poor business decisions. So I quietly started rumors around Megalocomm that I would be striking out on my own and laid the inroads to one day peddle my wares within Megalocomm and indeed outside of that same company which apparently was no longer interested in the business themselves.