How Wendy Piersall, Barry Schwartz & Jeremy Schoemaker Got Started

Do you ever wonder how these people we have heard of who have become such a success in their respective industries actually started out? Well I do…so I went on a simple mission to ask them; and Im honoured that I received some great responses. This post may turn into a 2 parter if I get more responses but we’ll see:

Basically I asked people:

How did You get started operating as a business / sole trader and get started in doing what you do?

Wendy Piersall:

There’s really only a few ways to get it done:

Use your savings

Borrow money

Start tiny, reinvest every cent, and do everything yourself (that’s what I’m doing and it’s very inefficient – I won’t make the same mistake again)

We also burned through our savings in the process, and some people would think it is too much of a risk. Personally, I think it’s much more risky to work in a ungratifying job while never living up to your true potential… but that’s just me!!

Barry Schwartz:

My story goes back to high school. My twin brother, Ronnie, started messing around making web sites. Back then, web sites were really bare. So he made a site for a local chinese store. Then other companies started to ask him to make sites for them. After high school, we formalized the business and register the name RustyBrick. The name was thought up in class, by my brother, based on his initials - RBS (RustyBrickSoftware). We dropped the software and went with RustyBrick. Throughout college, we took on some larger contracts - mostly through connections. We converted a garage into an office, hired our first employee. We took on more contracts, more work and grew out of the garage, taking on office space to where we are now. We have eleven full time employees and one part timer.

One thing remains the same. We always focus on the core development. I am the only “sales person” in the office, and I hate selling. In fact, we only get business through word of mouth and even much of that we turn down. We are in a great position as a company right now. And it all happened organically - purely out of demand.

Jeremy Schoemaker:

Basically my accounting started out just me doing it. I used quickbooks to keep track of all stuff and kept all the receipts in a box. I also took pictures of all expenses to the home that could be questionable to a auditor. The first year ShoeMoney Media Group was in business we had them done by H&R block. The books the first year were pretty easy because there were no employees other then myself and I never took a salary… so no taxes had to be paid and since we were a s-class corporation we got back a bunch of taxes from our day jobs (I was actually on unemployment the first 3 months I started ShoeMoney Media Group).

Jan 1 of the next year I started taking a salary and we got an accountant to pay the quarterly taxes. He was a personal accountant just a mom and pop shop. He gave us some decent advice but he was really lazy and even made us file for a extension cause he was so unprepared. that really sucked. I mistakenly thought the extension meant that we did not have to pay taxes a few extra months so I invested the money in a 3 month cd that was supposed to be paid in taxes…. mistake. I had to borrow like 90k from a friend to pay taxes for a few months until we could cash in the CD (and for that I bought them a new computer/laptop and other stuff with amazon gift certificates i saved up.

I fired that jackass and that was when I made susan a full time employee. Also by this time we had like 3 corporations and there were a lot of expenses. We went with a large accounting firm out of omaha (I think the biggest in nebraska) and they charged us like a shitload… I mean it was like 25k that year just to do our taxes. Also this company did not at anytime point out any ways to save money. I just never got the feeling they were working for us.

So after that year I fired them and finally found the greatest accounting firm ever for a internet biz in lutz & company. They also own a web hosting company so they have a clue about what I am doing. We were super impressed with them in the first month they found a Nebraska State tax credit for some stuff where we got almost 10,000$ PER COMPANY back and this was a credit not a deduction so it really rocked. They also saved us even more money with various credits and deductions and also advised us with outgoing cash-flow. I think they SAVED us about 50k total and only charged us around 12k to do our taxes. I know not every year will be like that but man… Its true what they say good accountants are worth there cost. It just takes a while to find them. They also own a web hosting company so they have a clue about what I am doing. We were super impressed with them in the first month they found a Nebraska State tax credit for some stuff where we got almost 10,000$ PER COMPANY back and this was a credit not a deduction so it really rocked. They also saved us even more money with various credits and deductions and also advised us with outgoing cash-flow. I think they SAVED us about 50k total and only charged us around 12k to do our taxes. I know not every year will be like that but man… Its true what they say good accountants are worth there cost. It just takes a while to find them.

I kept this natural so you could get a real interesting response like I had hoped after posing the questions. Great appreciation goes out to Wendy, Barry and Jeremy for giving a response and It was an interesting read for me personally so hopefully it helps give advice to others out there who need inspiration like we all do sometimes.

P.S 3 more days and I’m off to Vietnam