Unfortunately, it turned out that my new and novel approach had already been patented. I contacted the patent holder, and unfortunately he was not willing to part with it or even participate for anywhere near a reasonable arrangement. Further research into this market will tell you that there are some big players involved — going up against them would take a pretty serious commitment from people with deep pockets. Since electronic voting is not my area of most expertise, and because I don’t have those sorts of pockets, I’ve decided to side-line the electronic voting market, in lieu of my other 2 business ideas. Coincidentally, I have managed to make notable progress in both those other areas, although one more than the other. I’ll post more about those in a bit.

1. There isn’t enough time in the day to work full-time and run a side business. I tried that for the past two years. It sounds good in theory, but your home life suffers, and it wears you out to the point where if you don’t take a sizable vacation from everything every two months or so, you start to go a little crazy.

2. I am spending about 3-3.5 hours a day traveling back and forth from Long Island to Brooklyn. This is clearly a large and unproductive (and non-entertaining) chunk of the day. From the time I wake up (to go to work) to the time I get home is about 12 hours. This is not an ideal lifestyle when I have an option otherwise.

3. The freedom to make large and unilateral decisions in my private business stressed the lack of that ability in my day job. That’s not anything that wouldn’t be the case at any large company — there are policies and procedures, and they are there for a reason. However, a small company has the ability to turn on a dime in either its procedures, infrastructure, or business strategy, and a larger company can’t. As time went on, the difference between the two was getting more frustrating.

4. If not now, then when? I’ve been talking about starting businesses — with viable plans — among my friends for quite a while. I am about to get married. If I don’t take this opportunity now, then when will I have a better chance to do so? I refuse to be forced to tell stories about what I “could have done, but was too afraid.” After all, there is nothing to be afraid of, other than some serious effort.

5. I think I can succeed. I’ve been reading up on some of the myths of start-up businesses. For example, the proverbial “9 out of 10 fail.” It turns out, that this counts all small businesses — the bulk of which is restaurants, deli’s, dry cleaners, etc. And, of the 9 that fail, most are closed voluntarily, not because they bankrupt. I don’t think the chances are so poor as that. Also, my company already has existing sales. These sales have dropped lately because I haven’t had the time to devote to it.

Of course there are all the other reasons one might imagine: “be your own boss,” “work from home,” etc. I think the ones above are the biggest, for me.

I hope this has answered at least some people’s questions. I think it answers mine.

Instead, I’m ready to take the big plunge. I’ve had some side business or another cooking for almost as long as I can remember working. It’s come to the point now where I think I have learned as much as I am going to learn without making a bigger commitment to it. So, I turned in my resignation at work today, and in 2 weeks I will be working for myself full time.

This is totally stressful, of course, more so because my career is really on a roller coaster ride upward. But it is also a sort of a relief. It took a huge effort not to smile as I was informing my boss of my intentions. Despite everything else, this just feels right. I expect that there are some hard financial times ahead — but no more so than I have dealt with in the past, and in fact much better because my fiancee is an accomplished and distinguished worker at her company.

I will be concentrating on two core businesses. Now that I will no longer have to worry about co-workers reading my blog, I can write much more about those here. Not today though. Today I get to rest.

In conjunction with my wedding in 2 months, this is the beginning of a new phase in my life, and I recognize that as being significant. I was looking for a change, and I think that this will be a good one. I look forward to a new beginning

Corporate America is an interesting place. For me, there’s a wild ride between high highs and low lows. Getting a good review is better than acing a report card — its the same thing, but in an environment where your skills can make a difference to the company’s bottom line — ie, the “real world.” Bonuses are nice too, but the review is really what makes my day.

But then people get layed off, budgets get cut, and usually for all the wrong reasons. Of course companies need to save money, and reduce their costs from time to time. But when there doesn’t appear to be any clear corporate direction, and “upper management” doesn’t feel the need to keep their employees even informed, it puts the whole company in a depressed molasis. Of course productivity is going to be reduced when the employees don’t even know what the company direction is. If I weren’t a devout capitalist, things like this would make me turn to communism.

I’ve had a bad week.

Business Name Generator

Product Name Generator

Background

Upon starting my first job out of college, I learned that my first responsibility was to determine a job title for myself. I already had a good idea of what my responsibilities would be, and any title which the management didn’t particularly object to was okay.

I found that this was one of the most difficult things I have had to do in a long while. Of course, working in the computer industry, I decided that the best solution would be to write a program to do it for me. Here you go. Every time you load up this page, it will generate a new, completely random job title. Some time in the future, I may add support for different types of jobs, like cooks, investment bankers, and elevator repairmen. If you’d like to see that, drop me a line.

Your new business could be:

Computer Job Titles

Product Name Generator

What’s This?

Do you want to start your own business? One of the first (and most fun) parts is coming up with a good name. In order to register your corporation or LLC, you’ll need to come up with a unique name for the company or DBA (“Do Business As”). The page will help you with that!

Background

I have decided to go into business for myself. At the current time (November, 2001), I’ve got a pretty good idea on what I want to do, and even have 2 or 3 contracts pending which might even stop the bank from taking my car.

Of course, the only problem at this stage is that I need to come up with a name for the company. Given my past experience with Job Titles, I figured I could adapt my earlier program to generate company names instead. Here goes. These names are mostly geared towards technology companies for now, but as before, if anyone has any suggestions, comment below and maybe I’ll include it.

Update (4/17/2007)

I’ve recoded the original business name generator so that it can now create business names in different categories. Please keep those suggestions coming, and I’ll add them to the generator. Expect to see a bunch of new categories over the next few days.

Update (6/22/2007)

There’s a new checkbox “use fake words.” This will try to make new words by using parts of some of the other names in its library. If you don’t like the names that it generates by default, try turning this on to increase the variety.

Update (9/15/2007)

Separated “Construction / Landscaping” into 2 different categories, and improved both of them.

If the name generators above are useful to you, please let me know! Also, if you think you have a good idea for a new name generator, leave me a comment below, and maybe I’ll make one.