Better Than Crabs

With my experiences in the past month or so of trying to start-up my own business I now realize why the statistics are so big for “small businesses” failing in their first year. To me, it seems like the system is set up for them to fail. Just when I think things are turning the corner and coming together something else happens that pulls it all back down again and grinds me to a hault. Thus my current frustration.

I’m trying to obtain business insurance as it is a requirement for things I’m not allowed to discuss — more frustration at the moment. After being referred to a local insurance broker by many different people — even other insurance brokers in town who I called for quotes — I assume my search was over. I filled out the appropriate forms and sent them in and was told it’d be two weeks maximum until I received my quote. These two weeks passed and I receive an email saying something along the lines of “I’ve been on vacation and just got back today and this was waiting for me in my inbox, we need more information from you before we can process your application.”

Needless to say I wasn’t too happy. I filled in the new information they needed (maybe TOO good) and waited patiently for my insurance quote, another week has passed making it a total of about a month waiting and I receive another email. I’ve been declined:

We do not have the insurance capacity to provide you with insurance for any music related hosting sites.

First off as a brief rundown, my main “clients” I would like to have are musicians/song writers etc and I’d be hosting their web sites with THEIR music. I’ve been declined because I was honest about this. Now another thing, what’s wrong with music hosted on a web site? I can see if I said I was creating some sort of hack and slash music site but in my application I stated that it was web sites for musicians with their music.

I then followed up with an email asking for a better explanation on why I cannot host “music related web sites”. I’ve still heard nothing back. I thought I was quite fair and calm in my reply but it’s been two days and still nothing.

I’ve moved on however and tried contacting a few other places. I finally found another insurance broker in town who didn’t direct me away from them and who knew what “web development” was. I then spent about four hours today filling out more forms to submit to try to get a quote from this broker. I informed them up front that I’d be hosting “music related web sites” and asked if it’d be a problem. He said “no”. We’ll see when the quote comes in however as I clearly stated in my first discussions with the other insurance company that my main clients were musicians.

I then went to the Internet and Mr. Google to see if I could find “web development insurance” or “web site insurance” and other combinations of those words. A lot of jumbled results came up with few actual hits. I was able to find an insurer in Southern Ontario and I’m still waiting to hear back from them. Web development is listed under “new media” for them however and this may have answered some of my questions in trying to find a broker, web development even though around for more than 10 years (as a boom) is still “new media”. A lot of insurance brokers simply don’t understand it. This is evident in the applications as well, it seems like half the questions are irrelevant and you try your best to answer them and relate them to the business. You then get questions back asking “what sites will you be hosting?” Well, I certainly don’t know every site I’d be hosting considering I haven’t started yet (okay I’ve started a bit) now would I? So I went on and listed sites… this lead to a denial.

The whole process is like jumping through hoops while riding a unicyle eating a hamburger.

I’ve been sitting here today thinking to myself “is it worth it?” Do I enjoy making web sites? Yes. Do I do a good job? I think so. Can I make a living off this and provide? I’m not sure anymore. Is it worth my time to keep having road blocks thrown up time and time agian when all I want to do is make web sites for people who need them? I’m not sure again.

It’s come down to some tough choices lately and it’s pretty taxing and draining on me physically and mentally. I’m simply frustrated with most things right now and don’t know what direction to go in. Do I “fail” and become another statistic, do I “fail-sort-of” and put the web development to the side and get a full time job or do I keep grinding my teeth and keep pushing, it’s a tough choice definitely.

Now with all that on the plate it was brought to my attention just recently, and there was good intentions behind it I understand that, that my business name might “scare off” potential clients. Is Murderfly Multimedia an inappropriate name to conduct business with? I’m not sure again. I believe to think so but others who think on the “business sense” and have a background there think I might run into more obstacles.

I’m an idealist and believe that my work should speak for itself and my name should be a secondary thought in any clients head. Besides do I really want to be a Techy Tech Place or Webby Web Word or Digital Diggimaroo or anything else like that which seemed popular early 2000s but sort of passe now. Maybe I should conform but am I here to conform or am I here to create my own space, my own existence and my own unique brand and identity. It’s more tough choices.

I’ve also spent plenty of time creating the logo and identity, have the business cards printed up and distributed, a couple of sites completed under the “Murderfly Multimedia” name, a business banking account and some other word of mouth advertising going on creating “hopefully” a buzz around the name. Do I forget all of this and start over again? It’s simply a frustrating time in what started out to be a good week.

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