I started working from home in 2002. My daughter was born in 2001. Prior to her birth, I was working as a software programmer in a 9 to 5 job. I loved my job and had every intention of returning back to full time work after my maternity leave finsihed. As it got closer to the completion of my maternity leave, I started having second thoughts. I loved being a stay at home mother. But I also loved to work. It was this dilemma that led me to start my first business. I started writing software for small and medium enterprises. I wrote customised software for my clients. Things went well - I was happy. It was a struggle to find the first few clients but after about a year, things started going reasonably well.

My son was born in 2006. After about a couple of months of his birth, I got back to work. My son had an accident in his first year which made me rethink my priorities. Anyways, in October 2007 I decided to close my doors and by the end of December I had finished up with my ‘first business’.

The past 6 years has been a good ride, sometimes a bit bumpy but all in all an enjoyable ride. I have learned a lot from my first business - I made plenty of mistakes - Mistakes I don’t want to repeat. Dealing with the aftermath of the mistakes I made was hard but the lessons learned from those mistakes are ‘golden nuggets’. Here are some of my ‘golden nuggets’:

1. You need to write your goals down. Writing them down somehow puts the stamp of urgency on the goals. It kind of makes you more accountable.

2. Don’t ever comprise on the prices you quote. Don’t make price your point of differentiation. As long as you provide good quality work, don’t be afraid to charge what you are worth.

3. Take it slow - Once you decide to go into business, spend some time to map out what your vision is and how you plan to get there. Details are very important.

4. Check how much revenue you are making regularly - you are running a business. It is not a hobby. If it is a one (wo)man show, run it like big business.

5. Finally, have regular time away from work.

Though some of these lessons might seem like common sense now, but it definitely did not seem so whilst I was in the thick of things. My ‘first business’ did well financially but when I look back, ready to take my next step, I want to concentrate more on the lessons I learned from the business.

I will write more about what I am doing now in my future posts.

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