Rainman noodle wet dream business project

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goldfish21
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30 Jan 2021, 7:58 pm

Just kinda dropped into my lap over the last week.

Was at my friends office cleaning windows (I can operate a scissor lift blah blah) & gonna be patching up some walls (my Trade) in preparation for paint. Got to chatting with one of his ~6 year employees about the business my friend has built, growing pains, problems, stresses, plans, projects, R&D, opportunities blah blah blah - all employees everywhere are a wealth of knowledge.

Slept on it. Messaged my friend and discussed some of the things. Told him I have free time during covid-times to put my business & industrial engineering education to work on his business problems, especially since there is no other business here I would rather assist with. Expected maybe a little resistance but instead the reaction is basically "OMFG yes please!" and he indicated that if he knew my life's plans were to work in an environment like that he'd shift some staff around and put me in charge with a six figure job. BUT, he knows I like my physical job to stay fit and not deal with people full time all the time, and that 5 years from now I intend to be a full time student, not a career manager.

So, instead, I can have as little or as much involvement as I want. Basically working part time as a business analyst/management consultant of sorts. His business is successful - he's not in any sort of financial trouble, it's just experiencing growing pains as he goes in multiple directions for multiple reasons and doesn't know exactly what the best ways are to grow his team, what their job roles should be, who should do what when and why, how they should be paid how much and why, how many of what people he needs to do what exact job, how to keep his difficult employees happy and so on. Tons of issues, some with easy solutions, others with complicated ones that will have to be developed along with his team, tried, and then improved or scrapped or whatever ? A variety of operations and management systems type things that entrepreneurs like him aren't experts in because they didn't study all of them like I did - they were too busy creating their product/service. My turn to help them do things better.

Anyways, this is about the coolest thing I've worked on to date. I'm still in data/info gathering mode. Learning who does what and why they're overwhelmed, what the most profitable things they do are, what money is being left on the table because they're not capitalizing on opportunities that have a very limited & known shelf life and how to best do that ASAP to cash in before the music stops.

The business & personnel problems and solutions aren't all that unique - these are common problems with known solutions. Just gotta work through them all and make them happen. But the business is rather unique and has a certain "sexy cool factor," that makes it cool to be a part of *because* his business is basically a "The Fast & The Furious," R&D lab/headquarters - their main product is software for car computers to make cars go faster. Fun stuff - but for ME the fun stuff is solving business problems, reducing his stress & improving the business operations, scalability, communications/operations, sales & profits, happiness of his worker bee team etc - These things are fun for ME & there's literally no one on this planet I would rather put my noodle to work for. Not too keen on big corporate greed, but to make my friend's already successful business work smarter & be an even bigger global empire for the benefit of him & his family/my God children? f**k yeah! 8)

Also nice to know if my pursuits now, or in the future, don't work out how I want them to, as long as he's in business I can probably always have a role created for me there as a back up plan.

Exciting stuff. Just thought I'd share. :D


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goldfish21
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02 Feb 2021, 3:46 pm

Okaaaay, no one cares. *shrug* :lol: Thanks for all the congrats & encouragement posts and well wishes towards solving my best friend's business problems, anyways! :lol: :lol:

Anyways, so far so good. Had extensive chats with one employee twice now - for several hours after business hours, until after midnight last night. He's a wealth of knowledge but butts heads with his boss. I have nearly 22 years experience communicating with his boss & can relay my friends visions and plans to his staff better than he can, as well as take their concerns to him better than they can. Win-win communication funnel. Plus my biz n00dle has good ideas for all involved and I think we're really going to nail some most excellent systems changes that really help with the growing pains the business is experiencing, the pressures and stresses current staff have, and the over all ability for them to scale up ASAP to take full advantage of the gold rush the business and their industry is currently in.

Good chat with another employee w/ good info and ideas, too.

Still gotta have a proper intro and discussion with the guy that's in a management role.. a knowledgeable useful dude, but also another difficult character. I'm sure he also has unexploited talents and experience that can be better utilized. He messaged my friend while I was talking with contractors yesterday and basically asked if I was gonna do any work or just talk to people. :lol: I respect that he's aware of who's there and doing what and not wanting to waste my friends' money, but he Assumed I was simply there to patch the walls and I wasn't patching walls so I must be f*****g around. lol my bad for not really communicating with him about the evolution of my role there & wtf I'm talking to people about and why. He's a grumpy cat, but a useful one. I'm sure once he realizes what I'm Actually doing for them that he'll be more accepting of the fact that I'm talking/listening vs. patching walls and cleaning windows. And if not, *shrug*, oh well - doesn't really matter - my work will push forward same same as other projects there that he or others didn't believe would work out and have since been implemented and do in fact work amazingly well. Part of why his role is to maximize old school core business & not really get involved in new dog new tricks kind of projects.

And then there are others to glean intel from. Jr. employee. Sr. accountant/manager. etc.

Bottom line is that in order to do more they need more hands on deck. They only reason he hasn't advertised jobs yet is that he doesn't know *exactly* who should be hired to do what and why - everyone has different ideas about roles that could be filled in the company & why, and no one is wrong. Jobs from the lowest level shop helper/assistant to the highest levels of management/marketing/accounting. IMO, the answer lies somewhere in between - and not hiring just one more n00b, but as many at once as can possibly be justified in order to bring them up to speed on basics and turn them loose doing lower knowledge/skill repetitive task stuff in order to free up the time of the 4 main guys so that they can focus their time on far more valuable things to grow the business that aren't being done because they're too busy doing things that a "drinking bird," could do by pressing the any key.

Soon soon I'll have enough info to formulate into action plans and start executing. All of this is for sweet f**k all nothing if the rubber doesn't meet the road and we all know it. Thankfully it's a small biz with growing pains that my best friend owns and he can do whatever tf he wants with. My input, his, staff input, make plans, make changes, assess value, modify as needed - nothing has to be set in stone, we might make mistakes.. but nothing has to stay the same that's limiting their potential & stressing everyone out, either.

Once we start DOING things instead of talking about them, then everyone's going to be happier. The biz will grow even faster & everyone will earn higher paycheques. Sooooo, this is pretty much going to be f*****g awesome. :ninja:

And I pretty much have an open ended offer to have as much or as little involvement there as I want. If I want a career there, I can design my own job. If I want to pop in from time to time and absorb info like a sponge and recommend improvements, I can do that. One day at a time for now as it's not my life goal to be there - but it is super cool and I'll put in full time hours there temporarily during covid-times when I have time to hangout there and help work some magic. 8)


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kraftiekortie
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02 Feb 2021, 11:27 pm

I didn’t see your thread till now.

I wish you every success.



cberg
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03 Feb 2021, 6:04 pm

I'm in a similar boat, my boss is cooking up a new job for me & I'll be getting into more civil engineering tech, 3D scanning & hopefully also some architecture here and there.

Until then I will be partying.


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goldfish21
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03 Feb 2021, 7:39 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:
I didn’t see your thread till now.

I wish you every success.


Thanks kk! :)

The biz is already a resounding success and continues to grow, but the stuff I'm working on now w/ the owner and his staff is going to REALLY make it grow. There's a lot bigger potential than they know how to exploit - hence my involvement.

And I'm basically doing it as a passion project because I love this stuff AND want my friend's business to do ever better for the benefit of him, his wife, and even more so their 3 kids. THEY are why I'm doing this.

I'll get paid. But I haven't even been tracking how many hours I'm into this project exactly. I haven't discussed or negotiated a wage or a price - and I don't even care; I'd probably just do it for free. But, my friend will insist on paying me, and I don't particularly care about the exact amount. Someone else might charge big bucks for consulting, but I'd be okay with small bucks for consulting. Chances are he'll pay me more than I expect him to - he pretty well always does for all of the different work I've done there on building renovations and things. He asks for an invoice, I give it to him, he says it's not high enough and pays me more lol.

We might end up making a plan, implementing it, measuring it's impact on the bottom line, and assessing it's value after the fact to determine what it was worth to him before he decides on some sort of pay for it - like a gain sharing contract of sorts. *shrug* I don't even care; THIS STUFF is one of MY "special interests," and THESE PEOPLE are people I love and will put my noodle to work for. 8)


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goldfish21
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03 Feb 2021, 7:41 pm

cberg wrote:
I'm in a similar boat, my boss is cooking up a new job for me & I'll be getting into more civil engineering tech, 3D scanning & hopefully also some architecture here and there.

Until then I will be partying.


Nice nice. 8) Yeah, he'd create a permanent full time role for me there now or whenever if I want it. He can have my efforts whenever I'm free to give them, and when I have other things to do I'll do other things.

He's also in a position where he might be willing to create a position or career path for a mutual friend of hours if he wants it now or in the future - his education, experience, skills, and interests all align with his company. Not sure if he can be poached from where he's working now, but never know, we're going to get in touch with him and tell him the door is open if he wants to peak inside & take a look.


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Redd_Kross
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03 Feb 2021, 9:56 pm

Well that all sounds rather excellent.

I would love a job like that, it's quite flexible and open-ended and that always encourages me to work harder and get more involved than being on the 9 to 5 treadmill. Specialist analytical roles are always good, too.

The face-to-face stuff definitely sounds like your sort of thing more than mine, though. Beavering away behind the scenes on structures, processes and systems would be more appealing to me.

I'm a great believer in companies focussing on quality, and customer and staff satisfaction, rather than purely concentrating on money. Especially in a business like that, where the product is pretty much going to be good / bad straight away. There's no real room for a 95%, near miss product, is there? So it'll be interesting to see what happens. From that point of view don't forget to optimise the opportunities for everyone, not just your friend and his family! Any business is ultimately only as good as its weakest link.



goldfish21
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04 Feb 2021, 1:58 am

Redd_Kross wrote:
Well that all sounds rather excellent.

I would love a job like that, it's quite flexible and open-ended and that always encourages me to work harder and get more involved than being on the 9 to 5 treadmill. Specialist analytical roles are always good, too.

The face-to-face stuff definitely sounds like your sort of thing more than mine, though. Beavering away behind the scenes on structures, processes and systems would be more appealing to me.

I'm a great believer in companies focussing on quality, and customer and staff satisfaction, rather than purely concentrating on money. Especially in a business like that, where the product is pretty much going to be good / bad straight away. There's no real room for a 95%, near miss product, is there? So it'll be interesting to see what happens. From that point of view don't forget to optimise the opportunities for everyone, not just your friend and his family! Any business is ultimately only as good as its weakest link.


It is rather excellent, I must say! :) I'm SO proud of what my friend has created and built over the last 16 years. Now it's doing better than ever - but - there's a LOT more potential that can be exploited out of it, especially over the next 5 years. It's pretty cool working on the things that are going to put him in a position to optimize the opportunities he has vs. leave a whole lot of money on the table because he wasn't able to scale up smartly to satisfy demand & capture more of the market.

The face to face stuff doesn't bother me any - I'm fine with it. 8)

Off the shelf standardized software products being flashed onto sock cars that have been properly maintained work very predictably ~100% of the time, yes, But, some guy with an old car that's highly modified? He might want custom tweaked software made Just For His Car, and they can Best Guess some things, try it, test it, see how the driver likes it, put the car on a dyno and see how it actually performs, and sometimes things don't work exactly as smoothly as expected & there are misses - could be related to any number of modifications a car could have.. so yeah, there are times when the product doesn't quite work perfectly & requires some kind of modification and tweaking for any number of reasons. Such is the nature of the beast when tuning custom modified cars of a variety of ages & engines, different computers, different emissions systems etc depending on where in the world.

This project of ours isn't about squeezing productivity out of his employees to put in his kids' education funds. Not at all. He'd rather pay his staff double what he pays himself and have them all happy than do that. They're paid very decently for the jobs they do in our job market IMO - but of course some still gripe because it is impossibly expensive to live here. But they're still very decently compensated right now, and the objective of this entire look into how they're doing things and how they ought to is to figure out the best ways to utilize their talents in the best interest of the business And themselves. To free up their time to apply their expertise to higher value things that benefit the business way more than some of the job tasks they do right now, and in turn their compensation plans will be adjusted & they will see gains on their paycheques for producing higher value to the business for their time & efforts. This is Not a project to measure productivity and squeeze everything possible out of them for the same or less money. In the end, after new job descriptions are created & roles filled, his core team should see the number of hours they work to keep things going reduced IF they want to work less while Also seeing their paycheques rise. No one is going to be unhappy in this situation. There is no labour to cut and control costs - there's excess demand he's not capitalizing on & we're going to start fixing that asap and watch his business volume explode. Again. :ninja: 8)


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Juliette
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06 Feb 2021, 7:53 pm

That’s exciting alright, goldfish! Love how supportive and passionate you are about nurturing your friend’s business even further! Wonderful to read! :heart:



goldfish21
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06 Feb 2021, 8:11 pm

Juliette wrote:
That’s exciting alright, goldfish! Love how supportive and passionate you are about nurturing your friend’s business even further! Wonderful to read! :heart:


Thank you for that! :) It IS exciting! I emailed him today to say that after yesterdays talks with 3/4 sales guys (one was out in the field, unfortunately as I'd have loved for him to be there for the convo) and then chatting on the phone for 75mins with his AWESOME software development team lead that works remotely from another country because he took a full time job somewhere else for a Billion dollar company that pays him a lot more money but is still on board here Because he likes my friend And the project(s) and the vision etc I was rather excited about the changes we're about to embark on and then on to the next thing and the next.

No idea if I may end up sticking around here full time hours for the foreseeable future - I told him that, too. One day at a time. He knows 5 years from now I plan on being a full time University student and part time/Summer time worker bee to float the bills, but Maybe I put my full time efforts For Now into his business. I've told him all this in the email, too. One day at a time frying the biggest fish first and then moving on to the next thing and the next in an endless list of problems & solutions. It's truly impressive how much he has accomplished to date and manages to keep afloat on his plate - But - there is SO MUCH MORE to do and so much more potential for his business to scale up and grow ASAP for so many different reasons.

It's HIS head down hard work for 16 years straight that's created what he has now for me to help him work with. It's the perfect storm of having too much business potential and not knowing how to make the most of it. Most businesses have the opposite problem: Not enough demand and they need to figure out how to get more. Here they're overwhelmed with demand and they're not even trying to get more and they need to figure out solutions to work smarter, not harder, ASAP so they can make hay while the sun shines. T-7 weeks until their "annual lull," (which never happened this year due to covid - covid has increased their business, not reduced it) is over and they start getting super busy.. so we have 7 weeks to accomplish some our highest priority objectives before it becomes exceedingly difficult to do so.

Fun fun. I have some work to do over the weekend to refine draft job ads and job descriptions, chat with the last guy for his input so he's not left out of the loop (and also with his accountant who's working from home) & then boom - time to go on a hiring spree and bring more hands on deck to fill the highest demand roles ASAP and get them trained up and turn them loose to do their thing.. and then onto the next issue and the next and the next - a never ending cycle, really. One day at a time, but even once covid is over and it's safe to go back to my other job working around a lot more people vs. very few ppl social distanced in his office, depending on how things go, it might be stupid for me to leave his business IF my work there works out Very Well for his business And pays me more than my Union job. It might be a no brainer to just keep showing up to his office every day and greasing the wheels of his machine until it's running ever smoother.


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Juliette
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07 Feb 2021, 6:45 pm

Sounds like a true success story already, business-wise, but with potential still unmet! With your expertise, it may well see exponential growth on a far greater scale than ever imagined! Always exciting to see a business running more efficiently. 16 years since conception, and going strong but your visions for growing it, could seriously steer it above and beyond. All the best over the next seven weeks in achieving those high priority objectives. The race against the clock is on 8).

Will be interesting to see where this takes you in terms of staying on with the company or sticking with your Union job, as you mentioned. Your future plans of becoming a full-time Uni student five years from now are pretty exciting in and of themselves! I seriously loved my time at Uni and hope you really excel with your studies! You clearly have very exciting times ahead, let alone what you’ve already achieved! :)



Last edited by Juliette on 07 Feb 2021, 7:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

goldfish21
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07 Feb 2021, 7:03 pm

Yes yes, all exciting things.

My friend has done truly impressive things starting and growing this business. His reputation has created a unique situation where he has a problem of too much business and they don't know how to best handle it & scale things up. My turn to help out. Way more fun solving those problems than not having enough business and scrambling to get more.

He's on board with my ideas to help things along. As long as my ideas are smart ideas, and the team has their input etc, we have free reign to do anything we want that makes sense - my friend owns the place; there's no corporate headquarters to say no. This is HIS corporate headquarters & he can say yes all he wants.

Yes, clock is ticking.. we'll have to move pretty quickly. Create job ads & start interviewing before we even fully have job descriptions hammered out kind of quick. 7 weeks to ideally have 3 more people hired and trained up to a certain minimum level before the pace of sales picks up speed. Plus other simultaneous problems and projects of all types imaginable in every department. It's insane how much my friend has on his plate. And then all the other ideas and opportunities that are good but no one has time to act on yet. Just wow! So much to do. But one thing at a time.. and then the next and the next.

Time will tell.. this could evolve into me being there full time. (Already discussed.) The building is around 15-20 mins from where I live And there's a University campus a few blocks away. If they offer courses I want/need, I may end up taking them there just to keep everything in a tight geographical area. Maybe. Time will tell.


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goldfish21
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13 Feb 2021, 12:25 pm

~No one here cares but me and I'm okay with that lol, but here's an update anyways - even if just for a little positivity on the forums.

Was a long week. Made some decent headway on my main objective in terms of putting things into action, but very little in terms of reading info, having conversations, and compiling data/input for my 2nd highest priority project there. However, I did learn a LOT and accomplished a LOT of other "side projects," that help with the day to day & future planning there.

Probably the most significant accomplishment of the week came about from asking one of the long term guys to explain the structure & flow of arrangements/communication, workflow & customer perception, who's responsible for what (when and why) in the grand scheme of how they do things. This guy is Quick - very bright mathematical analyst type, possibly even with a touch of aspieness IMO, and he gave me the run down. Next conversation I had was with a senior management team accountant - he gave me a different version. Wtf? Back to the other guy to double check.. confusion. Emailed the CEO, he replied the next day with a different version than either of the other two & then after I read it I walked into his office and sat down to discuss it for Crystal Clear Clarification and we got into an extremely highly valuable discussion about how things actually work there, how various people who have worked there for years think they work, possible improvements & justifications for them as they continue to grow etc - this is where the lightbulb was going off; a bit of a eureka moment for the CEO on who (various employees to customers) thinks things work what way and why, and how all of this can be better simplified/standardized/systemized so that everyone is on the same page & as they grow in the future things are scalable vs. so overly complex due to so many custom arrangements that not even the people who've worked there for 6-10 years know how things work. (On the surface it's a simple business, but in reality there is NOTHING simple there - it's all layers upon layers of interconnected complexity.)

THIS was HUGE and I feel S O B L E S S E D to be the guy in the room to have absorbed the info, asked the questions, and proposed the solutions that will be put into action over the next few months & then beyond into the future of this business so that it's easier for everyone involved to even understand how they do this, never mind actually do them with effectiveness, efficiency, and minimal stress & frustration.

My friend that owns the place does his work in his niche because it's his passion. It just Happens to make enough money to employ others and be a bigger business than a one man show. His Needs are so & humble that if after covid when people working from home return to the office, no joke - even though his employee was joking - he's willing to give up his fancy CEO corner office and do his work from inside his VW van again like he has in the past. I could just imagine some future Forbes article being written about the deaf CEO that works from his Eurovan while his team spreads out in the office. :lol: 8) Anyways, he does his thing because it's His Thing - me doing these things for him & his family? Same same. I don't even have a formal contract in place in terms of what my own pay will be for doing this work, even though he's suggested abc/xyz and that we craft up some incentive targets to reach & attach dollar amounts to them - ie, do the work, get the results, meet the targets, earn a bonus. Yaya, ok.. hang tight - not sure what the measurable objectives should quite be yet Nor how to put a valuation on them that he's ok with. Doesn't matter to me - doing this work and solving his business problems is what it's all about - the journey, not the destination. First time in my life I've ever been truly excited to go to work and work on something. 8) Like with his work - the work will be done, it'll be good, the results will speak for themselves, and money will come later. If only every one of his employees had that sort of attitude.. but hey, it's an imperfect world.

And then there's TFATF stuff. The more I've been told about the super cool car projects the cooler it all is. Like this stuff is straight up out of the movies. Race against time competing with the competition to build and tune ever better faster cars.. the parts and components waiting to be installed and tested.. the 3D printer prototyping some brand new thingies.. it's all just very cool stuff compared to almost any other business, really. Tons of companies that sell stuff on the internet like his company does, but almost none that have a warehouse full of super cool exciting gofast car stuff.


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