On starting a business

August 29 was my last day as a transcriptionist.  No more trying to figure out what the endocrinologist with the West African/French/Jamaican accent is saying 20 feet away from the microphone.  No more bleeding eardrums when someone decides to clear their throat right in front of the microphone while I’ve got the volume turned up all the way so I can hear the West African/French/Jamaican doctor.  No more commuting to work and having to eat out for breakfast and lunch and sometimes dinner.

But also, no more steady paycheck.  No more fun lunches with RS, my partner in arms at the transcription company.  And much, much less daily human contact.

Why did I do all this?  Because my singing career has finally gotten me to the point where I can afford to quit my day job.  And because the past couple of Christmas seasons have made me want to start my own business providing carolers to events.

So I quit my job and formed my own company.  I’ve got so many singing gigs on my own that they are, by themselves, a full-time job, so this is still a side business, if you will.

But it’s certainly VERY hard work.  I started back in March trying to write a business plan and got stuck.  I meant to apply for incorporation documents back in June, but I got busy.  June turned to July and then to August, and I had already put my notice in at work, so I figured I’d better get cracking.

Then there was the website.  After several failed attempts at building a website with a prefab Wordpress template, my perfectionism was getting the better of me.  I know just enough about websites to make me dangerous; I wanted the site to do certain things and look a certain way, but I didn’t (and still don’t) have enough chops to achieve my goals.  After about 10 hours of hair-pulling and gnashing of teeth, I realized that if I wanted to get it done right, I’d have to pay a professional to do it.

Enter BeSeen.  One of the founding partners is a fellow singer in The Crossing and also happens to be an advertising whiz.  His company will be putting together a fantabulous website just as soon as we get the pictures, video, and sound from last night’s photo shoot/recording session.  I’m very excited about this!

Working from home is wonderful and horrible all at the same time.  There are a million distractions from housework to TV to Facebook and Twitter to video games (I’m currently at the very end of GTA IV and am really frustrated I can’t/shouldn’t devote more time to it so I can finish the dang thing!!). Never mind the leather pouches I’m sewing for Ray to bring to Faire and the cloth pouches and sashes I should be sewing because I can sell them on consignment.  I also am volunteering my time negotiating a union contract that’s taking more time than we all had anticipated.  Oh yeah, and lest I forget, I have three different gigs I’m learning music for at the same time.  You know, for my job that actually pays the bills?

In order for me to set up this business properly, I have a ton of long to-do lists, from assembling music (I’ve decided to self-publish my own arrangements) to making sure there are enough costume pieces for those people without costumes (more sewing or paying someone else to sew!  Which do I have less of:  time or money?) to auditioning singers, building a client base (REALLY important), and writing contracts.  Ugh.  I need a clone.  No, I need several clones.  But I don’t have enough money for an assistant (or a clone…the R&D costs alone would be astronomical!), so I’ll just have to go nuts and try to do it all on my own.

Wish me luck.

Filed under Blogging, Ren Faire, Sewing, Singing | Comment (0)

Another Year, Another Dollar

Happy New Year! I know I should probably write something about new year’s resolutions and all that stuff, but this year, I’ve decided that I’m not going to have any resolutions, since I never keep them anyway.

I’ve been exceedingly busy this past Christmas season, what with performing in three Philadelphia Singers concerts and one Crossing concert, not to mention Christmas caroling. Oh, and did I mention I’m taking over said Christmas caroling company? Yeah, I was doing administration, HR, and payroll, while the current owner did sales. The deal isn’t done yet, but hopefully next year I’ll be running the whole thing myself, and by the time December 2008 comes around, it’ll be a well-oiled machine. Hopefully.

I did manage to get myself sick sometime around Thanksgiving, and I never really shook the after-effects of the bug. I’m still suffering from post-nasal drip, which is making me cough, and thus harming my voice. Very, very bad news, folks. My biggest problem is that I normally have quite a bit of time after Christmas to rest up and heal for the next round of concerts, but not this time! I’m currently in rehearsal for a Crossing concert with Piffaro (Jan. 5 & 6…come see us!) and then a barrage of Philly Singers performances of a Jennifer Higdon world premiere. So I’ve been in rehearsals since the day after Christmas, and I’ve only had New Year’s eve and New Year’s day off for some much-needed rest.

Of course, during all this craziness, my cat, Scratchy (no, not Itchy, who had the toxoplasmosis…Itchy is better, by the way, although his head is still a little bit sideways and probably will be permanently), got a urinary obstruction (essentially bladder stones), and we had to take him to the emergency room. He had to stay there for two nights with a catheter up his you-know-what, which, according to the attending vet, caused him to be “grumpy.” No kidding. Anyway, he is home now, and we have to keep both him and his brother (since they eat each other’s food) on a special diet formulated to raise the acidity of the urine in order to break up the crystals. They also have to be fed only canned food (it hydrates them and dilutes the urine) for the next two weeks, and man, that stuff is expensive!

Oddly enough, from all I’ve read and all the vets have told me, urinary crystals, or FLUTD, are pretty common in male cats of Scratchy’s age (he’s 5 years old). But when I went into the pet store, out of the myriad of cat foods, I only found one brand that made a canned formula suited to his condition. Oh, there were about two or three different dry types, but because I’ve been cautioned to keep Scratchy as hydrated as possible during the next two weeks, canned is all he should eat. So Purina has the monopoly on cats with urinary tract disorders. It’s either that or get the really expensive prescription stuff from the vet’s office. Oy.

Ray keeps telling me the cats are going to have to go out and get themselves jobs if they’re going to keep spending all of our money. I’m beginning to think he’s right. It’s definitely a good thing that I’m working so much.

Filed under Blogging, Health, Holidays, cats | Comment (1)