First Post

So I registered the domain, one-shore.com, in 2005. On August 12, 2007 I filed with the Washington Secretary of State for a corporation named One Shore Inc. I started using aaron at one-shore.com for email shortly thereafter. Today I created a blog on Wordpress and Blogger, to see which I prefer. I've used both for personal purposes, but haven't really been happy with either. So I'll try both alternately and decide eventually. There's not much danger to posterity, but I'll probably post business ideas here and maybe someday someone will want to find out about my company.

So this is the first post. I already composed a big rambling post on wordpress and decided the textarea isn't big enough. Neither is it here. I may end up looking for an offline tool (or just use vi and then cut and paste when I visit a cybercafe.) An email based blog posting tool might be interesting too.

Anyway, I'll duplicate a bit about myself and the company here, in the possibility that it might come out better.

The company is still in the incubator, although the step of creating a corporation with a tax id and all is an important one. I had to pay real money for the business license and incorporation, and now I have to file real quarterly taxes. The first expense was registering the domain and purchasing hosting, but other than that, it has been in fallow.

The main impetus for incorporating is to be able to do corp-to-corp billing should I find consulting work that requires (or prefers) it. Of course, if I end up getting partners and giving them shares or employees with options, I'll be that much closer. Being a registered business may also help with gaining customers if I do go the route of selling products or services.

In just over 1 month I will be moving with my wife to Cuenca, Ecuador. She went down there in 2004 to volunteer with OSSO, the Ophanage Support Servives Organization. She fell in love with the country, the people, and the work, and so now we are returning.

She would like to start her own foundation and work in tandem with OSSO, but also on her own in areas that they don't specialize, particularly in providing help to teenage girls. She will teach English and do job skills training as well as developmental programs for children similar to what she does here.

I will try to make a living, or at least improve my skills while I'm down there. Of course, I'll work with her and the orphans as well, but I will concentrate on starting a business. I don't know how far I will get in the next 6 months. I may end up finding telecommute work, or start selling products, or merely find out that that's not what I want to do. But for 6 months I'll dedicate myself to it, and at the end, evaluate. Which may mean seeking investment, hiring employees, giving up, or maybe just spending some of the profits.

What I'll do first is identify 3 products or services and attempt to develop them. I'll create a web site for the business presence and other infrastructure as needed (network, email, etc.) I'll also look at 3 products or services (probably open-source tools) and look at supporting them. I'll begin with a home office but may end up renting office space. In conjunction with Kelsey teaching English, I will offer computer skills classes. I'll also try to learn Spanish. I will look for web development and testing consulting work as well as part or full time telecommute positions.
After 3 months evaluation, I will decide whether I want to pursue developing or supporting specific applications or markets, or target consulting. Optionally I will continue to pursue both.

My skills are in web application development and software quality assurance. I could pursue hosting solutions or a QA lab, but those are capital intensive. Product development or client hosted solutions are an alternative, but then support services become the liability. Employees, partners, and investors all bring their own baggage. Telecommute and consulting are time intensive and do not allow geometric growth. However, they provide steady income.

These are the decisions I will have to make. I have a pretty good idea what I want, and the answer looks like "all of them" but I will refine it after 3 months, and again after 6 months when we return from Ecuador.

I hope the toughest question will be whether we buy the house in Ecuador or the boat first.