Open

[TxDoc]

About a year ago, tv used to play the Open Forum commercials quite often.
If anyone has not seen them, here is their main commercial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2SMl...feature=relmfu
Open Forum was created by American Express to promote networking between small businesses and support their growth.

And, no, the purpose of my post is not to give AMEX free unsolicited advertising - although I do like the fact that their company always support small businesses and entrepreneurs in general.

Actually, my post is more of a "please watch and share your thoughts" kind of thread - and I will start by sharing mine.
I do agree that this is a time of re-building and re-inventing ourselves and our professions/businesses to revive the economy.
In times of economic turmoil we see entrepreneurship at its best: it is the time when people try to re-invent themselves and to start something new, the time when we take risks and innovate, either out of entrepreneurial spirit and quest for wealth, or even just out of necessity.

In my case, I am not currently a business owner: I am employed by a large academic medical center. However, I did own a business when I was young, and definitely liked both the freedom and challenge at the time. Then at some point I took a different direction.
Since then, I always had in the back of my mind the idea that sooner or later I would start one (or more) side business(es) again, to maybe grow them into full-time activities by the time I retire from medicine.
Haven't yet taken action on it - but I admit that in the last year or so, I have often been thinking about some startup company ideas.

So, what about y'all? In these last couple of years, have you started a new business or thought about it?
Do you care to share your thoughts?

[maillotpois]

That's an upbeat, positive commercial. I enjoyed it.

About 6 - 7 years ago I realized I didn't want to be partners with my law firm partner anymore and didn't want to be him when I was his age (mid 60s). Nothing against him - I just didn't want to be running a small litigation firm and having the headaches associated with that. I developed a plan for starting a different practice area that I could then break off and do on my own. I started building that practice in 2006 and it got to the point where it could sustain me within about 3 years, as I had hoped.

I gave notice to my ex partner 2 years ago and left 4 months later, starting my own mediation and private judge practice. There were some wranglings, unhappiness and disagreements about my giving notice which led to a lot of stress on my end. I'm happy to say former partner is now doing very well at another firm, and things are amicable. But that was a tough additional component to have on top of the stress of simply starting my own practice.

It has been a somewhat up and down first year and a half, but mostly up (certainly a vast improvement financially) and overall it has been a very good move for me and my family.

What sort of business are you thinking of starting?