It's been a very long time..

Since I've updated this blog.

The blog name; "Looking into the abyss" reflected my mood at the time I started it. At the time, my business was beginning to feel the pain of the recession we have all been going through and hopefully are seeing the beginning of the end of.

It was born out of the frustration I felt as a business owner seeing the imminent failure of 15 years of success, and having no one to turn to to talk about it. You see we had a very big company. Well, not *very* big, but big enough. We were in the vertical industry of direct mail. The Direct Mail industry is very incestuous for lack of a better word. Everyone knows everyone. People do not leave, the move laterally from one company to the next. It is said you either love it or hate it, there is no in between.

I was seeing the writing on the wall when I started this, and was having a difficult time convincing my partners we needed to grab the wheel and yank right as hard as we can to prevent the ship from over turning. We had about 35 employees at the time, and were doing between $5 and $6 million in annual sales. Our name was well known, and so was our service. Had I been any less discreet in my ramblings, anyone in the business would have figured out and the sharks would have swarmed and the clients would have headed for the hills.

Our business was comprised of major financial intuitions doing primarily credit and check work. They had a lot to lose if we failed.

We hung on for dear life though, selling our building in a sale lease back to cash out and try and ride the storm out, that didn't work. We cut our salaries over and over until we could not get along personally in our financial life. We took all of our personal savings and poured it back into the company, effectively bankrupting ourselves in the process, we cashed out as much 401K money as was allowed and put that in too.

On February 6th of this year, halfway between pay periods, we hung up the phone with ADP after being told that if we cannot make payroll, they would not help. We called our employees into the conference room at 11:00AM, and said "We are very sorry to tell you all that we are officially out of business as of right now. Take your personal effects and go home - we are done".

It was heart breaking.

What started out as a grand idea in our heads nearly 15 years ago had come crashing down upon us. What began as simple water cooler talk took on a life of it's own with every day that passed by. Each day we did one more thing to move the idea forward until there was no turning back. We had a plan, a written plan.. "Plan A", which became plan b, then "C", then finally, "Plan D" was the one we went with. We quit our jobs and struck out on our own, leverageing everything we owned against an idea.

It was difficult, very difficult. There were long hours, there were 7/24 weeks, there was stress and pain. There were late night phone calls to very dear freinds for mental support night after night. After a year or so, it actually started to look like a business.

As I look back on it, I can say that anyone who has an idea they think will work should take a simple step toward that goal. Those steps add up. You can make it work, trust yourself.

I plan on bringing this blog back to life, as I still need an outlet. Here I sit, just as I did in 1995, no money, no prospects, a difficult home life and an idea.... we'll see if the Pheonix can rise from the ashes again....

Oh, and Pooh?.. thank you from the bottom of my heart..