thoughtmechanics

I made a personal decision a couple of weeks ago, but I didn’t want to write about it until I was sure that I would be able to keep to it. Let me explain. A couple of weeks ago I wanted to go to Subway for lunch, so I drove about 1.5 miles, parked my car, walked up to the door and read a sign that said: “We only accept cash.” Annoyed, I walked up the street to a nearby convenience store that had an ATM sign hanging in its window.

When I got there, I spotted another sign, this one read: “We are temporarily closed, please come back later.” Pissed off, I walked over to a restaurant that was in the Subway plaza, I went inside and immediately saw a wooden sign behind the register that said: “Cash only.” By this point, I was pretty perturbed. I looked around and remembered that there was a strip joint (excuse me, adult establishment) called “The Electric Blue” also in the plaza. I figured this place had to have an ATM machine. I walked into the bar and there it was, salvation! I walked over to the ATM only to read: “Out of order.”

At this point I was ready to get on stage and dance for the money to buy my friggin’ sandwich, but that wasn’t really an option. So I drove up the road until I came to the next plaza and found a bagel shop. I walked in and said, “Do you guys take credit cards? Because if you don’t, I’m outty.” Thankfully, they did and I was able to eat lunch.

But that brings me to the point of my post, why the bloody hell don’t businesses take credit or debit cards? It’s 2005 for God sake, there’s no excuse. So the personal decision I made (and that I’ve kept mind you) is that I will never again give my business to someone who doesn’t accept credit or debit cards. If you don’t take debit or credit, you don’t get my business. Maybe it’s just my liberally elitist New England tendencies at work here, but it’s not exactly rocket science to take credit card payments for your business. You could even setup a POS system that’s connected to the Internet and use PayPal. The point is that there’s no excuse not to accept credit cards in this day and age. My convenience is more important than your 50 cent transaction charge!

When my wife and I sold our house to fund a web design company, we made a huge mistake. Not because we flushed 40 grand down the toilet (although I still have nightmares about that part of it), but because our timing was way off. We started our company one year to the month after 9/11/2001, which was a huge mistake on our part for two reasons. First is the obvious shock to the economy that came about as a result of 9/11 and second, the ripple effect of the dot com bust was still being felt.

According to a 2003 advocacy report by the Small Business Administration, the “unemployment rate climbed from 5.8 percent in 2002 to 6.0 percent in 2003,” banks had stiff lending standards in 2002 and the recession of 2001 had not yet ended. It was only at the end of 2003, when my business had all but failed and I was already looking for work, that things started to pick up for small businesses. But by that time, I had such a bad taste in my mouth after losing 40 grand that the idea of staying in the fight wasn’t at all palatable.

But that brings me to the irony behind this post. I’ve actually gotten more requests to build websites for people in the last month than I got during the second half of the year that I owned my own web design company. But rather than start another web design company, I’m doing these jobs as an independant consultant. And because of all the recent work I’ve been getting, I’ll be able to get me one of these a lot sooner!

So what have I learned? Never start a business in the middle of a recession and never, ever sell your house to fund your startup. I suppose I shouldn’t be so hard on myself, at least I gave it a shot, right?