Search Marketing Insomniac…The Blog of Adam Henige

We just made it past the one year mark.  The day in the office was pretty uneventful to be honest, but I couldn’t help but reflect on all of the things that happened in our first year of business, and the lessons I’ve learned.  To steal a cliche I used in my final weeks at Xerox, I’ll break things down Clint Eastwood style, “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.”

The Good

• My business partner is a brilliant guy, and a lot of fun to work with.  I couldn’t imagine taking this plunge with anyone else, and Joe has been critical in our success thus far, his networking and presentation skills have been on display all over Michigan.  There’s a reason I call him the mayor, after all.
• Our interns.  It started out with a lone intern last summer, and we’ve had a stream of them come through since then and they’ve been eager learners and a real asset to our output.
• Our partners.  Another huge reason for our success thus far has been our partners.  They’ve fueled our growth by partnering on projects (and in the case of GreenLite, they even built our new site!)  This past Thursday we invited everyone out to Claddagh’s for food and drink, and we had a good showing, and more importantly, a good time!
• Getting involved.  We’ve been very fortunate to be able to join so many great associations and organizations locally, which has allowed us to share our input and get some positive exposure.  We’ve taken part in presentations everywhere from Mason High School to Lansing Rotary, and enjoyed working with organizations like the South Lansing Business Association, Meridian Area Business Association, Capitol Area IT Council, Mid Michigan Red Cross, and the Creative Alliance (I’m sure I’m forgetting some, sorry in advance!)
• Our clients.  We wouldn’t have made it very far without them, and some of our earliest clients have continued referring even more business to us.  It took a bit of a leap of faith to climb on board with a new company, and our clients have been wonderful partners working with us to make our services succeed for them.
• Our new digs.  We moved from a tiny office in Okemos to 1,800 square feet next door to Capitol Research Services in East Lansing, which will allow us plenty of room to grow.
• The media.  Just today Spotlight Michigan stopped by to do a feature on us, and we’ve also received great press from the Great Lakes IT Report, Capital Gains, the Lansing State Journal and more.  The coverage has helped create awareness for our business, and the back links have been a big help to our SEO efforts (so if you want to feature us more often, just ask!)

The Bad

• The economy.  While the economy wasn’t on an upswing last May when we started Netvantage, we just didn’t foresee what started in late 2008.  Many a sleepless night happened late into 2008 as we wondered if we’d get undercut by the floundering economy.
• Learning as you go.  Truth be told, we have been pretty lucky in that we haven’t made any catastrophically stupid mistakes.  Thanks to some advice from our accounting consultant Andy Azelton, as well as some sage advice from friends and colleagues, we’ve steered clear of tragedy when it could have been all too easy to sink our ship.  That said, we definitely would change some things if we started over - client acquisition strategy and streamlining our early advertising amongst others.

The Ugly

• Perhaps the best part of this post is that there really hasn’t been an ugly stage to this past year.  Leaving a great job to start my own company in the teeth of a recession still sounds insane, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.  You only live once (depending on your religion, I suppose) and this was something that I just had to do.  2009 has been exceptional to Netvantage so far, and I can’t wait to see what’s next.

For anyone who’s been involved in our successes thus far, my most sincere thanks.  If it weren’t for all of you, we really wouldn’t be where we are today.