If you want something done right; Do it yourself

Why I am becoming a software engineer

That title has always seemed a bit harsh to me but also quite frankly, true in some instances. It’s not to say that others can’t do things right; many can and do all the time, it is all about perspective and persistence for me. More specifically it is about executing an idea for something that you have deep in your mind. It is very much central to your thoughts as a truly unique concept and becomes a creator of forward momentum. For me, this idea began to take shape about 10 years ago.

I have been in and around small businesses for the better part of my life and now as I turn 40 outside of my wonderful family, it is my life. The problem-solving that comes from running a growing successful business consumes much of my thoughts and energy. While that seems noble and predictable at a first glance; is it necessary? Is it even smart?? Ask a small business owner and they will often times say yes between meandering stories of how it is so stressful to run a business because “If you want something done right; you need to do it yourself”. You see, small business owners will frequently acknowledge there is or even should be a better way of doing things. Few of us seek out this easier workflow and even fewer try to execute it on their own, to put it candidly

"Many of us are stubborn, happily stuck in our own ways."

My wife and I opened up a mobile dog grooming business in 2012, one of many exciting business ventures we would enjoy over the years. We started out with a unique business model including all-inclusive pricing which was not yet mainstream in the grooming world. My wife loved grooming dogs and I loved business, the landscape was filled with clear skies and rainbows. As we began our new journey as a couple in a new business, we agreed that customer service would be the cornerstone to our business. Not just in theory or a fancy catchphrase on a website, or even something to tell others but no really the cornerstone of our new venture. We love to use services from businesses that are friendly, organized, and appreciative of our hard-earned money.

From my perspective, true customer service can’t effectively exist without organization. Technology nowadays is crucial for proper organization. We scoured the internet for a software package that could “help” run the business and keep us organized. A CRM or database would be all we needed to get up and running. Much to our frustration plenty existed but none of them were perfect, if I am being honest they were not even close. How were we going to keep track of appointments, customer data, dog data, mapping, sales, and the list went on. We panicked and figured we would attend a trade show to seek out the answers, surely, we weren’t the only ones in this position. We attended the world's largest grooming expo in Hershey PA a truly unique experience. We stayed there for four days and returned with two solutions. The most popular was to use index cards in a recipe box to track leads and appointments. The second consisted of a few poorly executed antiquated software packages. Reluctantly we chose the latter of two poor solutions, to begin on the road to organization.

We decided to not re-invent the wheel (yet) and signed up for a software solution that was a “Customizable CRM tool”, it was okay but far from great. It did not track enough details about the actual groom, even after spending hours in the docs trying to figure out how it worked to "customize" it. Sure, it had the customers' address and appointments but what about the details, I mean the real nitty-gritty stuff; dog’s name, type of shampoo used, length of haircut, what the dog likes and doesn’t like, and any medical conditions we needed to be reminded of. All that “extra” stuff we began storing in an excel sheet, which turned into sheets, which turned into a cabal of data points that only I could decipher. The years went on like this band-aid after band-aid, spreadsheet after spreadsheet. We were successful and profitable but we spent hours trying to get the business to run efficiently and remain truly customer-focused. In 2019 I decided enough was enough and I would build something myself and I did, well sort of…

Our solution was to use a new to market doc / database solution called CODA. Similar to Notion.io and others it would allow us a place to centralize our data in a nice format, which was currently spread out between Gmail, contacts, word docs, and of course my nemesis the spreadsheet. As CODA evolved so did I and I began to study the power of API or application programming interfaces to connect our expanding suite of products together. I felt like I was on to something, maybe just maybe other businesses could use this solution that was working so well for us. I mean it looked terrible and is super buggy but the concept was there and my wife and I began to have more free time and falling stress levels all because of this cobbled-together solution. At this point, we were outgrowing CODA’s abilities. I needed to design something from the ground up.

So, like many others, I began with high hopes; filling my arsenal with bookmarked YouTube videos, Udemy courses, and other online resources.

I began studying HTML and CSS then I gave up….. and then I started again….. and then I gave up. Let i = “iteration of failures”.

I began to feel that it was too hard and had too many steps and pieces to tie together for a regular guy, a technically trained airplane mechanic from Queens, NY. My ideas and their eventual execution were for somebody smart, no make that super smart and a few of them at least. So, I finally gave up on my great idea; our business was running smoothly my little software solution full of bad code and Zapier connections was chugging along and life was good. Hours of clerical work turned into minutes and many of my daily tasks were now automated.

At this point, our business has thrived. We have three trucks and a wonderful staff. My wife and I have applied our hard work and focus to other businesses over the years, and have grown as business people. Our use of technology has allowed me the time to run these businesses and attempt another try at making another dream come true; Brindle App. Named after the unique coloring of our canine mascot and CEO Ernie “The Bulldog”. Brindle App will be an app that mobile dog groomers can subscribe to in order to make their own business run smoother, more profitable, and most importantly more organized. It will take my decade-long dream and turn it into a reality. I was fortunate enough to be accepted into a coding bootcamp, hopefully it can push me to get the fundamentals down. Week by week the course is challenging me and connecting the dots guiding me along my new path to become a software developer with a clear goal; don’t give up this time build Brindle App.

Recently one of my instructors Tom shared his struggle early on while he was learning to become a software developer with me. He suggested I post a little note near my computer that would remind me why I am doing this when times inevitably get tough. Mine reads:

“If you want something done right; do it yourself … Build Brindle App”