Civi-Side

Its been about 3 weeks since my last post and I am happy to report that our startup is once again changing focus. The new site we are creating is called civi-side and it is a service designed to connect Canadian Forces reservists with reserve-friendly employers.

The reason for addressing this market is that there is a clear need, paying customers, barriers to entry, and seed funding. These are the holy grail of entrepreneurship. With them you have the highest potential for success.

The opportunity fell into our lap through a combination of inventiveness, the right connections, and serendipity. Being a reservist I saw the need for a job connection service about a 1.5 years ago, and prepared a memo for my commanding officer. While enthusiastic about solving the problem; I had no idea that there was a business in the offering, so I thought I would just be doing a service. While I waited for my proposal to take root somewhere in the organization I concurrently worked on bodbook. In Dec 2006 bodbook was funded by the CYBF and civi-side fell along the wayside. Without my pushing the concept to the CF organization, and bureaucracy being as it is, the idea died along the way.

Fast forward to late Oct 2007 and an open-ended question to my commanding officer by a well-placed general. The general posed an open-ended question "How can we do better for our soldiers?" Remembering my proposal, my commanding officer tells the general that she has an officer who has a good idea how to materially benefit the reservist through a job connection service. The general thinks this idea sounds interesting and invites the officer (me) to a meeting.

While waiting for the meeting I start integrating all that I have learned over the past year (business planning in particular) to prepare a bulletproof proposal. Along the way while business planning, I realize that there is a real business opportunity hidden in the service. This is the point where I refocus our resources completely towards civi-side.

The last paragraph contains an important lesson to absorb (possibly the most important one): "Go where the opportunity is". A year ago I might not have gone after this opportunity because common wisdom says that you need to follow through on your ideas. I would have figured that we were funded for bodbook and therefore I have to follow through on this till reaching success or failure. Normally this isn't bad advice, but in entrepreneurship it can be deadly. If I wasn't flexible enough to see that civi-side offered the path of least resistance then I would have missed recognizing this great opportunity, and potentially going bankrupt in the process. As an entrepreneur you need to focus, change focus, position, and reposition. I realize now that success is based more upon desire for success and willingness to adapt to any circumstances in order to achieve it, than any one particular idea.

Today we have seed funding for the service, a huge opportunity, and real benefit to offer users. All in all a fantastic end to 2007, and beginning of 2008.