Day 1
So we decided to do a startup. First let me say that this is Day 1 because it is the first day that I do not have the safety net of having a full-time job in case this thing goes belly up. It has been years maybe even decades in the making - but today - today is the first day it is real to me. Today I don't get paid in two weeks from someone else.
The road has already been interesting, that is why I thought it might be fun or maybe cathartic to tell others about the journey. Officially MindLight, LLC came into existence on January 4, 2017. That just means we got the Article of Organization back from the State of WI. We obtained our first funding dollars on March 1, 2017. These are good things, it is like hitting a few milestones in the creation of something real. Other deliverables along the way included our business plan, our revised business plan when we had to be realistic about how much funding we could actually get even if we did know the funder, the operating agreement, the promissory note, and a few billion other things.
I have also talked to the lawyer more in the last 90 days that in my entire life. That is good on one hand, meaning I have not been in trouble with the law. Bad on the other hand as it means I am paying legal fees and reading lots of detailed documents about IP infringement and indemnification.
So you got the wind up. Here is today's less than fun day in the life of a startup CEO story. On March 1, 2017 I walked my pretty little head into the bank. My intent was to open a business account, as I was already very unhappy with my first choice. I won't leave you in suspense, the first bank happily took my money when it was small enough to deposit via the app on my phone, but they were not equipped to take larger sums via the phone. Now this should also not have been a problem. I had checked with a real live person before this to make sure there were ATM machines in the area as there was no physical bank. Guess what, those ATMs allow the removal of funds, but they do not have any deposit ATMs in the entire state of WI. Woohoo. So I asked how I could give them what I considered a very large sum of money - the answer - you could mail it to us. Um, really? You want me to mail you a very large check and await the time it takes for the USPS to get it to you and then I get to wait the requisite days that said check takes to clear - is this correct? Oh, well you can certainly overnight the check to us. Oh really. I can pay to overnight a check to you in order to get it into my account because you have no way of taking this large of a sum of money in some electronic fashion. So, short story long, I was walking into a new bank on the first of March.
Admittedly I have no had to open a business account in person before, and we all saw how doing it online went. So I gathered all my documentation: articles of organization, EIN number confirmation, operators agreement, promissory note, my personal identification, and my SSN for financial documentation. These were all the same things the online bank asked for so I assumed I would be sufficiently supported with the various paperwork needed. I thought I was, I left that bank thinking I was. But, first more about the visit. Every checking account I have ever setup in my life has taken less than 15 minutes. Really, here is my money, proof I am me - thank you for setting up my account. I will wait for the debit card in the mail and I will pay for some checks and await them as well. Yeah, no such luck here in the world of setting up a business account. I am not kidding here folks, it took 4 hours. Yes, 4 hours. Now, I am positive it should not have taken that long. If you know me, I am a talker. So, I could account for another 15 minutes perhaps being my chatty nature. Yet, I seemed to have found the loneliest and longest standing member of this branch - and he was a T-A-L-K-E-R. I mean wow. So, he spent probably 5 minutes total putting stuff into the computer and well the other 3 hours and 55 minutes telling me about all of his brothers, how long he has been at the bank, how his aging mother needs care and he is burdened with most of it. In a formal life he was in insurance and financial planning and would travel to others homes to ... blah blah blah ... and trust me I like a good story. But if "I" and tired of talking and "I" think we have talked too much - well - you get it.
Well even if the gent was a bit chatty, I came out feeling like I had now met another milestone in the business. We have money to pay bills. We have bills due, so this is a good thing. Now I am a bit of a frugal gal so I had an invoice due on 3/10; I was not going to pay it too early as I want to keep my funds as long as possible. However, this is a new account so I did setup a quick payment on 3/9 to pay on of the many legal invoices that were due. There is a fee for not paying these invoices on time, so it was in my best interest to make sure it worked. Well - it did NOT work. The response was insufficient funds. Um, what?! Then the lawyer to whom I was trying to send money advises she got an alternative message indicating it was pending so I figured I would just check the next day in case there was a waiting period I did not remember reading about.
So here is where I get irritated. I try to login to my account yesterday evening and it says it is currently not active and I need to call them to figure it out. I call the very unhelpful person and she advises that the account is pending proof of owners names. What? So in the 10 days that the account was open no one called to advise more documentation was needed, or emailed, or texted. They happily extracted their funds for the checks that were ordered, which by the way are also on hold but the money has still been withdrawn. The only way to resolve said issue is to bring the operating agreement IN AGAIN along with the other founders (which by the way each live 45 minutes in different directions) to get the account that was already open and already had this document activated. So, I am very frustrated.
So, it's Saturday. You know the least likely day for the bank to have advanced services available. I get up and call the bank to ensure that my partners do not drive 45 minutes to find out there is no one there to help us on a Saturday. I called 11 times in a row and each time was told no one was there. Then, I realized it is Saturday and before 9am. Yep, let the frustration get the better of me.
So, lesson for today is anger and irritation coupled with my inane tenacity did not win. My calmer head prevailed and I will call after 9am - when humans are supposed to be in the bank and make sure that no one drives 45 minutes to an empty location. Leveled heads prevailed.
Come back often to see how the journey unfolds. I suspect it will be exciting.
Jackie Schwabe
CEO
The road has already been interesting, that is why I thought it might be fun or maybe cathartic to tell others about the journey. Officially MindLight, LLC came into existence on January 4, 2017. That just means we got the Article of Organization back from the State of WI. We obtained our first funding dollars on March 1, 2017. These are good things, it is like hitting a few milestones in the creation of something real. Other deliverables along the way included our business plan, our revised business plan when we had to be realistic about how much funding we could actually get even if we did know the funder, the operating agreement, the promissory note, and a few billion other things.
I have also talked to the lawyer more in the last 90 days that in my entire life. That is good on one hand, meaning I have not been in trouble with the law. Bad on the other hand as it means I am paying legal fees and reading lots of detailed documents about IP infringement and indemnification.
So you got the wind up. Here is today's less than fun day in the life of a startup CEO story. On March 1, 2017 I walked my pretty little head into the bank. My intent was to open a business account, as I was already very unhappy with my first choice. I won't leave you in suspense, the first bank happily took my money when it was small enough to deposit via the app on my phone, but they were not equipped to take larger sums via the phone. Now this should also not have been a problem. I had checked with a real live person before this to make sure there were ATM machines in the area as there was no physical bank. Guess what, those ATMs allow the removal of funds, but they do not have any deposit ATMs in the entire state of WI. Woohoo. So I asked how I could give them what I considered a very large sum of money - the answer - you could mail it to us. Um, really? You want me to mail you a very large check and await the time it takes for the USPS to get it to you and then I get to wait the requisite days that said check takes to clear - is this correct? Oh, well you can certainly overnight the check to us. Oh really. I can pay to overnight a check to you in order to get it into my account because you have no way of taking this large of a sum of money in some electronic fashion. So, short story long, I was walking into a new bank on the first of March.
Admittedly I have no had to open a business account in person before, and we all saw how doing it online went. So I gathered all my documentation: articles of organization, EIN number confirmation, operators agreement, promissory note, my personal identification, and my SSN for financial documentation. These were all the same things the online bank asked for so I assumed I would be sufficiently supported with the various paperwork needed. I thought I was, I left that bank thinking I was. But, first more about the visit. Every checking account I have ever setup in my life has taken less than 15 minutes. Really, here is my money, proof I am me - thank you for setting up my account. I will wait for the debit card in the mail and I will pay for some checks and await them as well. Yeah, no such luck here in the world of setting up a business account. I am not kidding here folks, it took 4 hours. Yes, 4 hours. Now, I am positive it should not have taken that long. If you know me, I am a talker. So, I could account for another 15 minutes perhaps being my chatty nature. Yet, I seemed to have found the loneliest and longest standing member of this branch - and he was a T-A-L-K-E-R. I mean wow. So, he spent probably 5 minutes total putting stuff into the computer and well the other 3 hours and 55 minutes telling me about all of his brothers, how long he has been at the bank, how his aging mother needs care and he is burdened with most of it. In a formal life he was in insurance and financial planning and would travel to others homes to ... blah blah blah ... and trust me I like a good story. But if "I" and tired of talking and "I" think we have talked too much - well - you get it.
Well even if the gent was a bit chatty, I came out feeling like I had now met another milestone in the business. We have money to pay bills. We have bills due, so this is a good thing. Now I am a bit of a frugal gal so I had an invoice due on 3/10; I was not going to pay it too early as I want to keep my funds as long as possible. However, this is a new account so I did setup a quick payment on 3/9 to pay on of the many legal invoices that were due. There is a fee for not paying these invoices on time, so it was in my best interest to make sure it worked. Well - it did NOT work. The response was insufficient funds. Um, what?! Then the lawyer to whom I was trying to send money advises she got an alternative message indicating it was pending so I figured I would just check the next day in case there was a waiting period I did not remember reading about.
So here is where I get irritated. I try to login to my account yesterday evening and it says it is currently not active and I need to call them to figure it out. I call the very unhelpful person and she advises that the account is pending proof of owners names. What? So in the 10 days that the account was open no one called to advise more documentation was needed, or emailed, or texted. They happily extracted their funds for the checks that were ordered, which by the way are also on hold but the money has still been withdrawn. The only way to resolve said issue is to bring the operating agreement IN AGAIN along with the other founders (which by the way each live 45 minutes in different directions) to get the account that was already open and already had this document activated. So, I am very frustrated.
So, it's Saturday. You know the least likely day for the bank to have advanced services available. I get up and call the bank to ensure that my partners do not drive 45 minutes to find out there is no one there to help us on a Saturday. I called 11 times in a row and each time was told no one was there. Then, I realized it is Saturday and before 9am. Yep, let the frustration get the better of me.
So, lesson for today is anger and irritation coupled with my inane tenacity did not win. My calmer head prevailed and I will call after 9am - when humans are supposed to be in the bank and make sure that no one drives 45 minutes to an empty location. Leveled heads prevailed.
Come back often to see how the journey unfolds. I suspect it will be exciting.
Jackie Schwabe
CEO
Let me know where you get the energy to do all the things you do for your family, for your friends, for your work, and now the startup of a company and still have enough creative energy left to write these blogs? Reminds me of the famous scene from"When Harry met Sally". I'll have what she's having!😀😉
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