My First Startup
Hey there, this is Clive (CEO @lodplanner).
When I was ten years old I really wanted to buy a pool table.
I’d been growing flowers in the backyard and selling them out the front of our house. However for me flowers didn’t grow quickly enough and that line of business wasn’t making the money required to support an ambitious ten year old’s lifestyle.
I asked my best friend Stephen if he wanted to set up a car washing business and the conversation went something like this:
– Clive: Do you want to make some money?
– Stephen: Sure!
– Clive: Do you want to wash some cars?
– Stephen: Not really
– Clive: What if that provided us enough money to buy a pool table?
– Stephen: Sure!
We borrowed some sponges and a hose and bought some wash and wax. The first few cars left a lot to be desired but we quickly discovered tricks of the trade and optimized the process.
We believed in perfect customer service and our attention to detail was so good that soon nearly everyone on our street and then the next street were happy customers.
We quickly made enough to buy the pool table but we realized that reinvesting in the business would be the best use for our profits.
One of those reinvestments was to buy materials to build a cart (see photo) for carrying our supplies — so that we could expand the territory that we serviced. Thankfully that call proved to be a good one and we continued to grow our little enterprise.
I’ve got fond memories of an adventurous initiative but at some point that one had to take second place to school.
Today at LOD Planner we have no such restrictions. Today we’re building a BIM Execution Planning (BEP) platform with our industry which could help to unite global BIM standards.
Our team is continually motivated through the work they are doing with some of the brightest BIM experts around the world. We are looking forward to sharing the journey with you all. Thank you for your feedback.
Investing in this BIM solution is much more exciting than washing cars nearly 30 years ago 🙂
