From Freelancer to Drupal Shop: The things they forgot to tell you
aimeerae
Starting a Drupal shop isn't just about getting talented resources, wonderful clients and making stellar websites. Being a business owner comes with a massive amount of legal and logistic obligations that need to be addressed - but no one tells you! This session includes important "hidden" business and legal topics both prospective entrepreneurs and existing business owners must be aware of.
Hook 42 started a Drupal shop in 2012 and grew from 2 owners to 6 employees plus multiple contractors in a 1 month window. This session will cover many topics we had to address to support such quick growth in a legal and sane manner.
- Make THE decision
- Going Solo vs. Team - the Pros & Cons of each.
- Choosing your business partner(s).
- Have a vision for the business size and culture.
- Identifying and adapting to opportunity and growth.
- Get Started
- Naming your business.
- Creating the business entity.
- Your support system.
- Identify risks & mitigation to your business type.
- Make it Legal
- Know when and how to find professional help. :)
- Legalese for client, contractors and employees.
- Hiring 1099s and employees.
- Outsourcing HR.
- Keep it Running
- Invoicing and getting paid.
- Accounting, budgeting and cash cushions.
- Reoccurring obligations to your team, partner and legal folks.
- Company management tools.
- Leveraging the Community
- Other Drupal CXOs.
- Blogs, articles, and tweets, oh my!
- Drupal user groups!
Speaker's Certifications & Education:
- Certified Project Management Professional, PMI.org. - 2006
- Stanford Certified Project Manager / Advanced Project Management - 2006
- Certified Scrum Master
- Certified Scrum Product Owner
- Certified Microsoft Technical Specialist - MS Project (and a bunch of other old MS tech)
- Business Analyst Education - IIBA.org
- Business Process Improvement - Performance Design Labs / Rummler Process (pre Six Sigma).
- University: Kinesiology / Physiotherapy, Psychology. ;)
Beyond the Certs - Real World Experience:
- CEO & Co-founder of an 11 person Drupal shop in San Francisco, Hook 42. A small team with big enterprise experience.
- Ran own freelance company working with large enterprise clients.
- Worked at and with full service agencies as a vendor manager, Managing Architect, and partner.
- Large enterprise applications architect, project, program, and portfolio manager at a bunch of big name companies.
- Specialized in large enterprise collaboration applications, knowledge management, process automation, and web technologies since 1997.
- Industries include: Agencies, Entertainment Software, Healthcare, Retail/E-Commerce, Security, Industrial / Commercial Software