Another meeting with our writers

The reality of life things don’t go the way you planned them. I originally planed to have a dinner with our writers at least once a month, but that didn’t happen. The main reason was technical delays in launching the website of course. Nevertheless, we meet couple of Thursday’s ago and that was really good. I think there is nothing better to get your creativity flowing than a good company of people eating a nice dinner and drinking beer.

Some of things I learned that we are all very different in terms of where we are in our life and our personalities. Yet the thing that unites us is that we are all searching for this new opportunity to realize our potential and to keep us exited for waking up in the morning and doing stuff.

Here are some pics:

It is been a long time since posting on here. The reason is plain simple: I was not actually working, but rather I was waiting for the company I hired to finish toronto4couples. Without finished website that I could work with, I lacked self-discipline to stay motivated and to keep moving forward (I hope my Sensei doesn’t read this). Well the website is sorta done and you can see it you will go to toronto4couples.com.

I feel very exited and sometimes overwhelmed at the same time to be finally working on the website. So much needs to be done and everything is important.  If you are in the same boat with me here is my advice: This is a time to have fun, watch your breathing and think about one thing at a time.

Where we are going:

-some of the writers we cooperated moved on to some other projects, so we will need to find couple of new ones.

-everyday new bugs are found on the website that need to be fixed

-loading the website with the content and organizing it in the most user friendly way possible

-promote

-wait

-promote

-wait

-hopefully make couple of bucks

Lessons learned:

-when dealing with web designers or any creative people for that matter stricter contracts needed. From now on anybody we work with will have to reduce the price of the project if they are late with their deliverables. When you think about a typical contract is usually puts all the obligation on the ordering party: pay on time, communicate on time. However,developer only estimates everything. We won’t sign contracts like this anymore, even if would mean a deal breaker. if you don’t like relationship with your suppliers – get out of early if you can. Face the brutal facts and understand that it will be cheaper in a long run.

-everything takes longer than expected, make sure you have something that keeps you motivated. There is always work to be done, whether it is prospecting, educating yourself and researching your competitors

I thank everybody who stay tuned during this whole time and I promisse more to come very soon. I would like to keep this blog as the window to how we are building the RomanZ Media Group Inc.

Here are couple of photos from my meeting with writers for Toronto4couples. All of them have such distinct and interesting personalities. It was lots of fun to hang out with them. I guess that is why I quit my job and started the business, so I can have fun while making money.

As usual my  $.o2 of advice:

Spend as much time as you need to get the right people on the bus:

I received close to a hundred applications for writers (I wish that was the same for sales rep position), and I and my partners took the time to read each application’s samples to get a bit more about their personality and select only the ones that fit. We decide that if we don’t find anybody – we just keep on looking instead of settling in.

For those of you who didn’t read Good to Great a word of advice: it is crucial to get the right people on the bus, more important than the direction of the bus. Market conditions change everyday (just look on past two days) and the strategy might change – direction of the bus. However, if you have right people on the bus you will be able to effectively adopt to whatever market throws at you.

Get to know the people on the bus:

Some of corporate souls I know are against becoming friends with your staff for obvious reasons (maintain the position of control, what if you need to fire them next day etc..). I don’t follow this principle though. While I agree that the certain level of distance is needed when talking about business matters it is very important to get to know people you work with personally.

As a manager/leader you have to know your people’s dreams, goals, and problems. You have to know what keeps them up at night. If you know what makes your people happy it is easier to assign projects, training and keep them happy. You got to make sure that the job they are doing is good fit not only to their skills, but also to their desires and goals. Once you know where they strive at give them all the initiatives on running the project.  Ultimately that would lead to happy workers. Happy workforce is 80% of success.

What is the better way to get to know the guys over nice dinner and then drink after?

I am not drunk just eyes half closed as usual

You got to love the ladie's smiles

Time is money, so let’s just jump right into my updates. I am back in Toronto for two weeks already, but didn’t get to do a lot of businesses related work till today. Firstly, I was fighting jetleg (usually I am better at it, but I guess it is been awhile since I have been for a whole month overseas) and then I was organizing, decluttering and building my home office. I wanted to start from a completely clean slate where everything is functional and has its place.

Today is a first day when I have a whole list of activities related to the business along with bunch of other non-business related tasks (my family is coming over for a month in August). My first task is to incorporate. Not sure how smart it is, but I decided I will fill out all the paper work myself. I figured that if I have a degree in two business majors from a university I should be able to do it myself. I will keep you updated on how the incorporation process works in Ontario.

Here is what I learned in my short career of being a business owner/unemployed:

New freedom takes a discipline:
When you have to go to work everyday and your day is so full with appointments it is very hard to be lazy. Now, when you don’t have to wake up at 7 or even 9 that is totally different story. It is very easy to slip in the mode ” I will do it tomorrow,” and become a couch potato. I am waking up everyday at 8 o’clock these day which is the same time I used to wake up for work. The difference is that it is my choice now to wake up early, so I can do my stuff for myself. I actually feel pumped up to wake up in the morning and get some stuff done. I know that anything I do is to helping my dear self. I also know that if I don’t do it – nobody is going to do it either.

The vacuum from not having to work is quickly filled up by people who think you are relaxing all day long.
It is really hard to explain to others who never done it what it takes to start a business. The worry and uncertainty everyday brings. Really, I work more now that when I was working for a corporation. Yet some people around me actually think that I have an unlimited amount of free time now, so they can just pour everything on me. Nah Nah I don’t have lots of free time – what I do have is a flexible scheduale.

Stuff doesn’t resolve by itself
While in corporate world a person can procrastinate for months and not take an actual action due to bureaucracy – this is an impossible luxury for an entrepreneur. You have to get it done, done right and done right now. It is now going to dissolve itself like it does sometimes in corporate world.


Overall, I am feeling exited and full of energy. I knew a lot of theory about what an entrepreneur feels like, but knowing it a feeling are two different things. I think with a time I will understand more whiy majority of people settle for working for someone.

This is an update folks. I am going to post more summarized info about incorporation in Ontario soon.

Have a great week everyone!

I just realized that I didn’t post since Thursday partly because nothing happened I could reflect on and partly because I’ve been working on www.toronto4couples.com.  Oh well who I am kidding? I have both seasons of Heroes and I’ve been watching the show non stop. I am now wondering where is my superpower.

I am facing bunch of challenges with Toronto4Couples:

• Lack of time
• I don’t know php, so coding is a pain. I just read lines of code and try to make sense of them. I did took computer science fundamentals back in a High School so at least I know how it is supposed to work
• I can’t come up with a clear vision – whether it is a blog or a static site.
• My main challenge is growing traffic. Most of the blogs rely on comments, trackbacks and social media to promote themselves. However, there is only one blog with similar topics in Toronto and bunch of other static sites that don’t allow comments. This leaves me with couple of options: 1) promote the site through the blogs that are based in Toronto regardless of their topic (hopefully close to mine like restaurants) 2) Run an ad campaign – right now though this is a social project, so investing money in it without a real business plan makes no sense.

I also created a list of pressing issues that I used by keeping in mind the action oriented to do lists.

• Need to make a logo, preferably for free and high quality
• Register business name – just in case it will pick up and I will start making money of it
• Try to find writers
• Waiting for the new release of the options theme

Let’s see if I can actually make time to work on all of those this week. Can’t wait for a long weekend!