2005 to 2007: Working, Painting, Traveling
I barely graduated from high school in 2003 and was more interested in traveling around than going to college. I worked a number of jobs during this time, including house painter, to save money for travel. Painting was hot, dirty, and smelly. It was damn hard work. But of all the jobs I did, it was by far the one I was most glad to be doing. During this time, I worked, I traveled, I worked, I traveled some more. Working as a painter, for a lifetime pro, had a huge influence on my decision to later build software specifically for this kind of business.
2007 to 2010: College
I went to college, mostly because I was supposed to. I’m glad I did because I probably wouldn’t have been hired as a software engineer without it. I’m also still paying for the degree.
2010 to 2012: More work
I worked other jobs and started building websites and software again after dabbling in high school. But my college bills came due, and I needed to find work to start paying them off. During this time, I wanted to start a software company, but I did not have the skills or experience yet.
2012 to 2014: Looking for work in software
I knew I wanted to work in software, and I knew it would pay the bills. It took me a year to figure out how to get a job in the industry, and the experience of finding a software job was terrible: applying was exhausting, and interviewing made me feel like an imposter. But I knew that if I could get a job in the corporate world, I could both gain more experience building software and learn about business at the same time; I needed both to start a software company.
2014 to 2020: Software, marketing, sales, and business
Eventually, I got an entry-level job offer. I don’t need to go into the details of where here. I continue to work at the company to this day, almost 12 years later. It’s been stable, I’ve learned a ton, and it’s enabled me to do a lot. Most importantly, buy a house and have a son. I began in the Software Development department. When an opportunity came up to move into marketing technology, I made the move, knowing marketing experience would also be crucial for starting a business. I picked up sales experience at this time, too. As a medium-sized, open-book management-style company, I also learned a lot about running a business.
2020 to present: Build Quote Cactus
By 2020, I felt like I had the skills and the bandwidth to slowly start building a business. COVID happened. My wife and I bought a house. Working with all kinds of service professionals at our house helped me develop the initial concept behind Quote Cactus: recognizing the need for simpler sales and marketing software and my desire to support these businesses with my own expertise. Then we had our son, and Quote Cactus also became a long-term investment for our family’s future. I’ve rolled it out slowly over the years, but today I’ve got a fully functional product and company to, and I’m very excited about where it will go next.
The future
I remain focused on marketing and growing my customer base for the foreseeable future. Every customer I get is an opportunity to get more feedback to make Quote Cactus better and more useful. There is a roadmap for features I will continue to add. I’ll post that here soon.