What drove me to pursue a hobby of software development was the needs for some extra cash. I thought, what can I possible give to people that they would pay me for. My background was software development and I was just starting my MBA, so I thought: “I will build some websites!”. Easy enough, I had done it before, so why not? Well, there isn’t really a reason not too, but there are definitely different levels of this to consider. Two lessons I learned: 1) Keep innovating and 2) Don’t give up.

I know these overused saying sometimes seem cliche, but they helped our company grow. I started with just a hobby, a side job. I would make some websites for about $500. Well, before I knew it I was working for a few dollars an hour due to constant scope creep, plus I had no free time due to school, work, my fiance, bodybuilding and now this new hobby. I quickly realized I needed to innovate and think of how this could be done more efficiently. I quickly hired a developer on contract to take over the work and I acted as a project manager. Of course, this wasn’t perfect but it did help alot. I now had some free time, ok great. However, how could I one day quit my job by just making $200 off of a project that took a month to create, I needed more innovations.

I tried a few different approaches to grow the company, but ultimately, I ended up hiring my wife and sister co-owners.. There are some big pros here. I trusted them, we all want the best for one another, they both had higher degrees and could offer some good insights from a non-technical perspective. Two years later, with a little bit of faith and a whole lot of persistence the three of us were able to establish our company with over 20 developers under us. We have worked on over 30 projects from small to large businesses. We now have the cash flow to grow even more and higher some more folks. The journey so far has been tough, but rewarding. I learned nothing comes easy or fast. If someone would have told me 5 years ago that it would take 5 years before you really could sustain your cost of living I may have given up, that seemed too long, but I’m glad I didn’t. Good things don’t come fast, and having a family owned business is always worth the wait.