Same old same old

I had a nice surprise today, my boss from my old job (who has since moved jobs) came in for a meeting with one of my colleagues.

While it was really nice to see him again (funnily enough, we got on great personally, but struggled as line manager and subordinate!), and we had a nice catch up. Except it wasn't really a catch up. For either of us really.

A bit of background - he and his wife don't have children - he's maybe a couple of years older than me, and they had thought about it, but then discovered that they couldn't have any. They were fortunate enough to be able to take the attitude that they could just make sure they made the most out of life instead.

So - the catch up... still in the same jobs that we had left for. Still in the same houses. Still with the same spouses (which is a GOOD thing!). Still working hard. No change in anything really.

It just made me realise - maybe that's why people do have children, to break up the monotony that is every day routine life when you have a mortgage to pay and therefore have to work.

I don't know what the answer is - I know that having kids is not the right answer for us, but it has made me realise that I need to focus and spend some quality time on getting our business up and running. I have to admit to having lost some enthusiasm for the project. Partly because I feel like I'm not managing to cover everything we need to think of, and don't want to let us down because I'm not thorough enough. I also feel anxious that we'll fail - our friends are all very positive, but when it comes down to it, we will be investing our savings in this plan, and if we can't get it up and running and to an efficient business model then we might as well kiss those savings goodbye.

I've also been floundering with the issue of importing and how that works. We won't be importing the kind of quantities to start off with that justifies the cost of appointing a shipping agent - and if we do that, then we have to be in a position to unload containers etc. Which means forklifts and premises where someone is there 24 hours a day - these are probably things we need to think about in the future, but not for the meantime. So I'm back to square one - how do I handle the import and vat?

I ideally need to talk to someone whose been here and done this, but they are all potential competitors and as such are unlikely to want to help us.

I have, however, today, resent the forms for registering the company... so in a couple of weeks' time we should hopefully be able to move forward with logo design, stationery and contacting suppliers in earnest. I've been disheartened with the lack of cooperation from our 2 favourites.

So - onwards and forwards hopefully. I have lots of potential customers lined up at least, so I need to start getting stock, getting the website, and getting people to buy.

The business is my baby.