{"id":975,"date":"2023-07-09T19:17:49","date_gmt":"2023-07-09T17:17:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/?p=975"},"modified":"2023-08-29T17:58:20","modified_gmt":"2023-08-29T15:58:20","slug":"im-an-idiot-or-am-i-starting-a-business-after-60","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/2023\/07\/09\/im-an-idiot-or-am-i-starting-a-business-after-60\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019m an idiot, or am I?"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Starting a business after 60.<\/h1>\r\n

Why not? It\u2019s never too late, but so much to learn.<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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\"The\r\n
The Wordy World of AI: Mastering the Art of Co-writing with Generative Tools<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n
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The Why and the Challenges.<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

After working for so many years for large, medium and small companies over the last forty-plus years. Why on earth did I do this to myself? It\u2019s a question I still struggle to answer. Perhaps it is simple stubbornness that once I start down a path, I don\u2019t want to stop until I reach the end.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

It all sounded so simple back in 2021, as I had to start my own company to continue my role. I won\u2019t bore you with the details; trust me, it was the logical solution to the problem and was considered a workaround until my retirement.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Only months later did my thoughts change towards building my company into a sustainable business. The more I thought about it, the more determined I became. But I had no idea what I was getting into; I didn\u2019t realise all the different aspects involved in business and how unprepared I was.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This article differs entirely from my usual subject, so I\u2019ll keep it short. Now and again, I\u2019ll post an update to see how I\u2019m progressing. Even if nobody else is interested, it will be a form of online journaling to remind me how and where I started and why I continue.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Totally Unprepared<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I thought that having a company would be a hop and a skip to building it into something worthwhile. I mean, what could be so tricky? After all, many people start a business all the time, some successful, but most not. Even if it didn\u2019t work out, I would know I had tried. Better than not even giving it a go.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

So, I naively thought that I only needed a website detailing my services, send out a few emails, and everything would grow from there. After all, what I was offering was valuable to other businesses. Wrong, a website is just the start, and I had no idea what marketing was (I\u2019m still learning, which is a long and painful process).<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I know the services I want to provide are valuable and will be attractive to businesses looking to implement software. Only there are so many forms of marketing I didn\u2019t know where to start. The business might be viable, but if nobody knows about it, it might as well not exist.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Marketing Struggles<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I don\u2019t know anything about marketing, certainly not from the marketer\u2019s side. I wish I did; perhaps things would be so much simpler. Where to start? Emailing potential clients, in my experience, is doomed to failure; if the mail doesn\u2019t get automatically marked as spam, it will soon be deleted. So that approach is out.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Set up Social Media accounts for the company. Sure, I did that, but for these to be successful, again, potential clients need to see the posts, which brings me back to square one. How to increase the visibility of the company and the services.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Next up would be networking at business-oriented social events. There is a bit of a problem here in the far south of The Netherlands; there doesn\u2019t seem to be much activity in this area. Or I haven\u2019t found it yet.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Potential Business Nr. 2<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Not satisfied with my struggles with my business. The release last year of OpenAI GPT and in March of 2023, GPT-4, started me thinking about providing business services based on these and other Generative AI tools.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

It\u2019s early days, but I see a business opportunity there, especially for smaller to medium-sized companies. I guess the coming months will tell if it is worthwhile pursuing.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Final Thoughts<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

As a one-person band, I have to do all of this myself, and I\u2019m not sure if I\u2019ll be able to manage it after the 40 hours a week days job. I am stubborn, though; I\u2019ll finish what I started until either it succeeds or it becomes obvious to be going nowhere.<\/p>\r\n

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See more articles, posts, and discussions about business, project management, the role of human nature, Generative AI and Creative Writing on Medium here<\/a>. If you have not already, subscribe to Medium<\/a>. Or follow me here<\/a> on Substack. The KodifyIT Substack newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber; I would appreciate the support; you won\u2019t regret it. 👍<\/p>\r\n

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Disclosure. I use Generative AI tools to help me when writing. From outline suggestions to topics or subtleties, I had yet to think of.<\/p>\r\n

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I apologise to my readers for some of the spellings you may feel are incorrect. I was born and brought up in the United Kingdom, and this is the spelling I am comfortable with (Grammarly<\/a> is happy with it anyway).<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Starting a business after 60. Why not? It\u2019s never too late, but so much to learn. The Why and the Challenges. After working for so many years for large, medium …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":974,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,31,21,24],"tags":[29,30,28],"class_list":["post-975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai","category-marketing","category-work-balance","category-writing","tag-business","tag-marketing","tag-startup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=975"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":988,"href":"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975\/revisions\/988"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}