After a lot of deliberating, debating, planning, perusing, and pontificating, my buddy DustyD and I have decided to start software development company named BrightMix.

Dusty's last day working for Aureus will be this Friday, and I've informed my employer of my intent to sometime in the mid-August.

It's with a heavy heart that I plan to leave my friends and colleagues at Securities America. But, alas, my aching to get out on my own, plus a handful of hot, time-sensitive opportunities, has convinced me (and Dusty) to move forward. I'm making every effort I can to see that my departure from Securities America is as painless as possible--easier sad than done.

Words from the Wise

Pretty much everything I've read from the multitude of startup authors out there indicates that our venture will:

• Be more work than we are anticipating
• Provide us with a freakish amount of experience
• Make us feel alive!

Business Strategy

For our first 6-12 months, we will be primarily doing consulting/contract programming work. This will be an effort to stockpile cash. After that, we want to focus on developing a web-based product and/or service that will generate recurring income for us. Our plan here is to quickly implement a number of small projects, study how they do, and then focus on developing the projects that seem to have the best future.

We want to avoid the lure of Consulting

Contract/Consulting work can be highly lucrative with high dollar-per-hour rates, but we do not want to focus on this type of work; it just doesn't scale well. Plus, if the work dries up, you got no monies--Boo that! I think it's really easy to get sucked into the contract/consulting game because it really is easy money. However, will only go so far.

On the To-Do List:

• Talk with an accountant and/or lawyer to determine some of the inner financial workings and get the company officially declared.
• Update the company Web site and blog to actually contain some relevant stuff.
• Get a stellar logo.
• Set up an "office" (most likely candidate --> my sweet living room).
• Get some initial work contracts hammered out so we can begin working.
• Have a BrightMix Begins party.
• Give everyone at party high fives!

Exciting times, indeed!

Friday my friends and I all gathered at my parents' house outside of Lincoln for some good ol' fireworks-related fun. As they say, there's no better way to celebrate your country's independence than by blowing up a piece of it. I had drove to Missouri a few weeks prior and picked up a healthy amount of high quality, illegal (at least in Nebraska) fireworks to affirm that the show would be as spectacular as ever.

Among the arsenal: roughly 125 Artillery Shells, a roll of 16,000 firecrackers, a bunch of rockets, some other miscellaneous items, and a couple of these bad boys: