Behind-the-scenes info on RentConfident’s life as a small business in Chicago.
This is a picture of a fireplace. It comes from a fireplace manufacturer up in Minnesota called Kozy Heat. To you it may seem like a very normal and nondescript picture. It's relatively bland. There's nothing striking about the composition or content.
For us here at RentConfident it's possibly the most important picture in the world. Continue reading Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Fireplace
Last month, Cecil the lion was hunted down and killed in Zimbabwe by a dentist from Minnesota. Angry nature lovers then hunted down the dentist's business and attempted to kill it with a combination of protests and vicious reviews.
The media coverage making it seem like Dr. Walter Palmer's act of violence was extreme, but the hatred demonstrated by the public towards his place of business was exciting but expected. (Example 1) (Example 2)
Based on figures estimated by the ADA (link), this two-dentist office lost about $64,644 over the approximately 17 days that it was closed. (It has since reopened.) That's just shy of a full year's income for an full time dental hygienist.
Small businesses are valued because they are theoretically responsive to the influence of the customers - of course, that responsiveness is directly related to their distinct vulnerability to changes in public opinion. You don't expect Comcast to change because you are displeased with their work. You do expect Uncle Joe's House of Ribs to step up the service if your potatoes arrive at the table cold.
Continue reading Small Business Safari: Vigilante Justice in the Digital Age.
A company always needs someone to write content – for the website, newsletters, emails, advertising. When we decided that writing for RentConfident would be part of my job, my brain began to buzz. Before, I had only written for my own personal pleasure. Now I would be writing for an audience. I had so many ideas. I had visions of broadcasting my mind to the world.
Coming from a creative writing background, I wrote stories to entertain. I was used to opening the hinge on the top of my head and allowing my imagination to spill out in all of its sensory glory. Then all I did was describe:
I soon found out that unicorns are of very little use to a business writer. Writing for business uses a different muscle. For me, good creative writing is plunging into the world within my own mind and describing that world as if it were reality. However, good business writing is taking an idea, a concept, or a message and fitting it into the world within the customer's mind.
I'm working on it. I'm getting better. Still, sometimes I find myself practicing old habits.
I'll be sitting at my computer, composing an email explaining the RentConfident Confidence Factor, and suddenly I'll be typing: We discovered the formula for the Confidence Factor carved into a tablet in the center of a deep dark forest. To find this tablet, we had to:
Then I stop. I take a breath and instead write: The RentConfident Confidence Factor starts with a score of 100. We deduct points for every risk factor found, such as:
I finish the email and move on to the next thing.
Sometimes I want to return to the world of free-flowing ideas, long descriptive passages, and not caring if everyone is going to understand or appreciate what I write.
But then I remind myself that there's an elegance to good business writing, and it can be beautiful. If I explain RentConfident clearly, if I convince a few people to try it, and those people find a great apartment -- then that's even better than escape into fantasy. That's helping people in the real world.
And it's a good way to get the unicorns out of my mind.
Last Friday Jon gave us a tongue-in-cheek list of possible names we could have chosen instead of RentConfident. The real process of choosing our name was much more serious.
I'm overly fond of the word "clever." It feels nice to say. It has lots of strong consonants. It reminds me of the first "Jurassic Park" movie. It also bears a decent resemblance to my last name. "Clever Realty of Chicago" was an official DBA for my old company. When I started work on the project that was to become RentConfident, it was natural that I would therefore call the thing "Clever Tenant."
Clever Tenant became the original working name of the project. In fact, the some of the oldest files on my hard drive are still saved in a folder with that name.
When I invited Jon to join me as a business partner the company couldn't be so closely tied to my own name anymore. We dedicated a few hours of our weekly meetings to coming up with a new name. Continue reading The brainstorming process behind the naming of a company
