About us

Hello, and welcome to my blog. I created this blog to share my downfalls as a small business owner, in the hopes that someone would read and avoid some of the same mistakes. The research I put in to write a post, many times, are answers the issues in my company.

My name is Sergio; I was born in Brazil and came to the US to attend college. At first, I had no intention of staying. My father was a successful businessman, and my goal was to obtain a degree, return to my homeland and ran the family business. But through a series of events, I ended up marrying. Four children later, I am still here.

I started my first business in 2007, right before the financial crisis. Needless to say, it did not last long. A couple of years later, my second attempt was an eBay store, along with an e-commerce website. I purchased a small shipment of overstock make-up and cosmetics. It took me two months to sell it all. After careful observation, I realized that it would take much work – photos, editing, posting, shipping – to make a living out of the profits. I needed something more robust.

My primary job was as a project manager for a property management company. To make the ends meet, I had a side hustle in the evenings and weekends. I managed as many as four massive projects at once, it was challenging. But working for myself was my dream. Except that I never had the guts to pull the plug. The decision had to be made for me.

In 2010, my employer bankrupt, and by mid-2011 the bank took all of its assets, along with my job. After dedicating six years of my life for basically nothing, now was the perfect time to start my business. Not really… I was forced to do it.

Really Starting a Business

Joining forces with a friend and co-worker, we started a paint and cleaning business focused on multi-family. It was the one thing I was familiar with. It took me two weeks to design a flyer and business cards. Using the little money we had — which was not much at all — we purchased a printer to print the newly created materials.

The next morning I went door-knocking to find clients.

I have to admit that owning a business has been a rough ride with many mistakes – fixable ones.

Blogging

The idea of blogging sprout from helping friends when they had business-related questions. I realized that even the folks who owned their own company were not well versed in subjects that were second nature to me. But because English is my second language, blogging is a challenge on its own, and a hurdle that only recently I have been able to overcome.

From a young age, I was a great writer and even won several competitions in school. However, moving to a different country, and learn to master a foreign language was difficult. In my first semester in college, I quickly realized I was not the great writer I once was. It took me several years to write texts that readers understand.

Frankly, I enjoy helping people suceed, and I sincerely hope you enjoy reading my articles. If you can take away one thing from any of my posts and apply it to your business or personal life makes me happy.

Happy reading!

Really Starting a Business

Blogging

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