How and Why Did I Start My Business?

What is it that launched my membership and online course building business?

Back in 2008, I was gainfully employed. I headed up the IT department for Subway Restaurant’s purchasing cooperative. It was a decent job. It paid the bills. I worked with some good people.

I also volunteered at Back on Track Network. They were church-based helping out-of-work job hunters get work. These folks needed help with resumes and interviewing skills, but, more importantly, they most needed was support. Anyone looking for work, even if they have savings, can easily get into a dark funk. They don’t know how long it will take to get work. You’re checking your email every minute. It becomes an obsession.

To many people, losing a job and it’s like losing themselves. Their identity is tied to that job they lost. Their confidence was tied to it. Their entire self-worth can go with the job.

I knew that so well. I had lost my job before I joined as a volunteer. Volunteering was my way to pay forward what I got from their program.

One shortcoming I saw in the program was that you had to show up in person. We had meetings at two Miami location, bit if you were NOT in Miami or if you could not attend the nights when we met, you got nothing.

My tech brain got an idea. Yes, I’m a programmer. I did graduate work in Computer Science at Purdue. (Go Boilermakers!). Couldn’t we make our in-person meeting information available online. The Internet was becoming a thing. Why not put it to work to help our job hunters?

I ran the idea by the BOTN board of directors. Crickets!! No one got it. They didn’t see what I saw. I saw huge potential, but no one else did.

So I went into action. I built what I was going to call the Back on Track Network Online. I built a proof-of-concept and showed it to the board.

Again. Crickets! No one went for it.

But I was committed. I launched the site on my own was CareerJockey.org. My tag line was, “Ride your career hard so it doesn’t ride you.” Pretty cool, huh?

That got me started as a website developer and online blogger. It also accidentally launched my business. A career coach that gave presentations at BOTN saw my site and asked if I could work on her website. A recruiter did the same. Before I knew it, I had this side gig that slowly made me as much money as my day job.

I didn’t set out to launch a business. I just sort of happened. I was working at supporting job hunters that led to me launching my Larry Jacob Internet Marketing.

This is my story. I would really like to hear your story. How did you start you business? What is it that got you started?