Startup.com Part I - Challenges



I’ve completed the first month at my new job, which I will henceforth refer to as The Underpants* Project (TUP). On my first day, I was introduced to the company’s financial accounts, which were a mess.

“You majored in economics (Nero pronounced this “ekon-oh-mix”), you should be good at figuring this out.”

I didn’t tell him that I have absolutely no experience with business finance, I hated my high school accounting class, and am still struggling to figure out what financial documents I should be creating and/or monitoring.

But we’re getting there. I have all but separated the CEOs personal from business finances. I have everything on electronic bill pay, and a new system for accounting that allows us to actually see what income is coming in, what expenses are sending money out, and what future expenses are coming up. Now I am starting to bore myself. Vamp! Vamp!


Underpants Challenges

• We are in debt. I tried getting a line of credit in order to transfer our ultra-high interest credit card debt, and was given a fiduciary bitch slap. Our rejection stated that we lacked credit history, had three delinquent payments in the last year, and suffered from revolving debt. Luckily, a lot of major financial institutions have customer support via online chat, so I was able to reply O RLY? UR teh l@mer knowing that if there is one think banks respect, it's teh leet hax0rs.
  
  
• One of the company’s three trademark applications was declined a year ago, the two others are in limbo due to insufficient specimens in their applications, and nobody was aware of this until I stumbled upon a few stray documents while cleaning out my file cabinet. Luckily, I can bring my concerns to the Department of Patent Offices any time of day, any day of the week, via fax.
  
  
• TUP was paying Google Adwords for a region we haven’t serviced in more than six months! For several hundred dollars/month! Take your efficient market theories and shove them up your ass, Adam Smith!
  
  
  
• Two of the seven full time employees suffer from severe illnesses, one of which is degenerative in nature. A couple of Thursdays ago, I went into the office manager’s office to ask her a question and she was supine on the floor under her desk. Yes, I know. We were paying her to convalesce on the clock.
  
  
• We have software due in one month that we were supposed to be working on for the past six. I’m not going to get into details, but remember in college when it was 2:00am, you had a 15-page research paper due in seven hours, you were wall-eyed with caffine, and in the middle of page three, you realize that you were writing yourself into a corner, your sources were not lining up with your thesis, there was no way out, and you had to give yourself a little pep talk to continue? Remember anything like that?
  
  
• So on Friday we brought in someone to potentially help us with our software dilemma. He listened to our situation with patience, and then tactfully, but firmly explained.
  
  “You are screwed. Nobody can help you. I refuse to make it even worse by getting involved.”
  
  You might be thinking, “you have already described this challenge in the previous bullet, get to the point!” but you would be wrong. The challenge came when we agreed that Nero and I would be shifting virtually all of our energies into project managing the software deliverable, and letting the rest of the company work on auto-pilot. This past weekend I have been reviewing our contract, and attempting to break it out into separate pieces of development to, as the saying goes, wrap my arms around it. Nero, meanwhile, sent me the results of his efforts - screen shot designs for how our software would look if we ported it to an iphone.
  

*Time to go to work. Work all night.
Search for underpants, hey.
We won't stop until we have underpants.
Yum tum yummy tum tay!