Well as you all know recently my company " Vovex Technology " went under since I ran into a huge brick wall early February.

We all think that running a business could be easy if you just have the time to focus on it. I'll tell you one thing though. I ran Vovex for 11 months and things were going great.... then one day something happened in my life that I wasnt expecting. It drew all my time & Money and eventually that made my business have to suffer, and eventually go under.

What can people do to safeguard their business investments??

Well since I've been back (from the hospital and many hours with my fiance) I've began to think about what I could of done to keep my business going even when I was going through tough personal times..

First off I would have had a left hand man which knew as much about the company as I did. So when I was gone, he could run it and vice versa.

Second off I dont think I would run a web business world wide. I would target local companies. It is way to hard unless you have a large support center that can be open 24hrs a day to provide quality support to someone you dont even personally know. It is a lot easier if you can put a face with the question. Not everyone learns the same... so if you know the person, you can adjust yourself better to help them out..

Im sure there are other great ideas out there that just havent hit me yet. Feel free to post what you guys think.

Time zones.
I think its a good idea to partner up with somebody thats awake while your asleep.

For a few reasons.

1) great support.
2) the whole left hand man idea...

What was the biz, hosting?
I'm not sure how you could have kept it going, because it sounds like you went thru a lot.

Sometimes life just bites you in the ass like you said.

If your going to start over now, good luck, you sound like a nice guy.

Best,
Eugene.

Timezones is a good point.

I was in the Hosting world like most other people here before my incident.

I am not sure whether or not I will start over right now. There are a lot of things that I want to get accomplished prior to me venturing out with running a business again. Plus I need to build up my finances again to get money to start a business.

Yeah it was hosting Eugene
Jonthan, I think the only thing really would have been to have someone else that could have taken over for you, even if you took them on temp to take care of billing/support/server admin etc. for a month that might have helped.

I think the best thing when something like this happens that means you cant run your business is to outsource it to a company that can manage your support and server admin.
You billing would only take around 30 mins a day and billing problems arent as important as support so you can take longer to work on those.

It might cost quite a bit to have other people do everything for a month but it would keep you afloat and keep your profits available for the following months, even if you lost money during that month.

As you said you are now in debt, it would have been even harder to do that kind of thing but you also said you gave a refund, maybe the money from the clients could have covered everything you needed other people to do.

Thats what I can think of at the minute anyway, Im sure this will help people who run into a similar situation in the future

I would of outsourced it to someone else... however there was no one that I could really think of... and there wasnt much time to do so.

I guess it should be part of a business plan for small businesses to maybe include an emergency contact and have a pre-discussed plan laid out just in case.

See I started doing that too, I have Steve at Rack911 looking over everything server wise and he has agreed to keep an eye on it while I am moving. Even though I have the laptops and won't be offline but about 16 hours, it is better to be safe than sorry. Also I will be outsourcing support that customers can access once I find the right company. Because as Jon probably experienced anything can take you out just like that if you aren't prepared. Never know day to day what can happen, illness, accidents you name it and if your company can't be reached for anything you are SOL. Sorry to hear you have has such a rough time Jon. My best to you for your future endeavors.

Johnathan,

Sorry to hear about this. I would have helped you admin the server(s) and probally would not have charged you anything being you were in the hospital.

Anyhow, when you are ready to rebuild let me know if I can help you out. Maybe start off with a reseller account and work your way back to a server.

That is too bad to hear.. hope you can get Vovex back on the go! Vovex was great

Try a new business, see how it works. Or, start up vovex again!

Im actually working on a new type of site. I figured there were to many hosting companies out there to compete with.

Im working on developing a "Relationships guide" site. Which will have interactive games/quizes/polls/chat. It will also have bedroom tips / whats hot whats not / getwaway vacation spots .

All the good stuff you need to know. I have 3 writers for the page. Myself / Aubrey (my girlfriend) and her mom. I also have a deal going through with local travel agency to allow me to promote their special vacation packages on my site.

It will take some work, but once it is done i think I will be getting a lot of hits.

Sorry to hear about your misfortune. Timezones, a good partnership, quility services (were you get your stuff from).

This is really what you mist think out ahead of time.

Your new venture seems ummmm... interesting to say the least :p