3Qs with Ron McCarty of Your Net Guard
February 1, 2008
This week I posed three questions to more than fifty CEO/founders of startups in the Dallas area. Throughout the week I will post the responses of the best ones. If you are interested in participating in the future just drop me a line. Ron took some time to respond to our latests ‘3Qs of the Week’, here are his responses:
Question One: Given the uncertainty in the financial markets (weakness of the dollar, high cost of oil, sub-prime mortgage mess, growing unemployment, possible recession) what changes (if any) will you make in your business?
Currently there is a disconnect between what I am reading and hearing from the media. Demand for IT Services appears to either be growing in despite of the environment, or lagging behind the down turn. Some of my peers have also stated the down-turn is being played up for the upcoming elections. Regardless, I am taking a cautious approach: focus on the core business, stay in tune with existing customers, watch cash flow carefully, especially delays on receivables.
Question Two: What advice can you offer to ‘would-be’ entrepreneurs who are thinking about starting a business in the current economic climate? Would you start your business today? What would you do differently?
Yes I would start my business today. The major step I would do differently is focus on sales immediately. When starting out I focused on marketing (mostly print and direct mailings); however, there are very few conversions to sales for small companies. Although very tedious, direct sales (calling, meeting, networking) is key to getting the revenue to ensure the company owner is not back at the corporate job in a year.
Question Three: Are you using Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn? What are you using these social networking tools for? Prospecting? Recruiting? Other?
I am using Linkedin and Plaxo. I use them mostly for keeping up with current contacts…their biggest weaknesses are the lack of qualifying or validating business contacts…i.e., seeing someone in a Linkedin contact list provides very little information as to how much your trusted contact trusts someone else. I am considering Facebook to support my freelance writing career.
Company Background:
Company Name: Your Net Guard LLC
Year Founded: 2006
URL: http://www.YourNetGuard.com
Key Personnel: Ronald McCarty, Nick Simpson
Invested Capital: $25K
Primary Investors: Bootstrapped
Revenue: $140K
