I was out of action the last 3 days. No posts on my blog. No working on my business plan. No sleep until 3 or 4 in the morning. All this stress because of a trojan (malicious software) I accidentally downloaded called ‘Virtumonde’. It absolutely crippled my computer. Although I had a backup of all my important files, they weren’t the latest versions. I was also afraid of losing all my emails in the past year, which I neglected to backup.
Thanks to a lot of perseverance and a few helpful pointers from the friendly people at the Mozilla online forum, I was able to fix the problem and recover all of my files and emails. As I’m breathing a lot easier now, I’ve had the chance to reflect on the last few days. Here are some hard lessons I learned thanks to my ordeal:
1. Always have a backup (preferably two) of all your important files. Having just one can be risky (picture a fire in your home or office; there goes your computer along with your external hard drive (i.e. the backup) in your cabinet). If you insist on having just one, don’t keep it in the same location as the original source. I use an external hard drive as my first backup. I also recommend you use an encryption software like TrueCrypt (www.truecrypt.org) to add another layer of protection. My second backup is Amazon S3 (http://aws.amazon.com/s3/), an online storage service by Amazon. Some of their great features include: no monthly fees or commitments, full encryption, automatic backups, and a great rate of 15 cents per gigabyte stored.
2. There’s beauty in simplicity. Afraid of losing all my ‘precious’ files, I went through all of my folders to make sure everything was intact. This search made me realize that many of these files were in fact, not that ‘precious’ (e.g. audiobook of Aesop’s fables, e-books on how to master AutoCad, etc.) I got rid of these unnecessary files and reduced/re-organized all my folders. One of my favorite things to do is getting rid of clutter, both in my physical environment as well as inside my computer. I find it clears and sharpens my thinking. I was reading an article on Bruce Lee a few weeks back and he had a beautiful quote on the topic. He said:
“It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.”
This applies in the business realm as well. Can you explain what your business does in a single sentence? What about in a single word? What are the essential and inessential parts? Who are your key customers and who are the ones you can do without? What is your key product or service? How are you spending your time? Are you just keeping yourself busy most of the day doing things that are urgent but really unimportant in the long run? When I started researching my business idea of launching a language training institute for the corporate sector, I spent a lot of time keeping myself busy. I tried to meet anyone and everyone. I tried to read anything and everything. I was getting things done, but I had no central focus. The constant activity made me feel good about myself though in reality, I wasn’t making progress. I now do my best to start every day by writing down a few things I want to accomplish that are essential and important. It might take me a mere half hour to complete these tasks, but at the end of the day, I feel like I made progress and moved forward. Simplify, reduce, eliminate.
3. Harness the power of OpenSource software. For those unfamiliar with tech lingo, the term essentially refers to free programs created through the joint efforts of programmers worldwide. Startups should give some serious thought to open source since they can save a lot of money in licensing costs (I wouldn’t recommend having ‘free’ pirated software installed in your workstations). So instead of spending a few hundred dollars on Windows, consider using Ubuntu (www.ubuntu.com), a Linux based operating system. Instead of Microsoft Office, you can use Open Office (www.openoffice.org) which has an equivalent to Word, Excel, Power Point, and Access and is also compatible with the Office suite. Instead of Internet Explorer, use Firefox (www.mozilla.com/firefox). Instead of Microsoft Outlook, use Thunderbird (www.mozilla.com/thunderbird). There’s even open source for CRM software (customer relationship management) called VTiger (www.vtiger.com), a free version of SalesForce.com. The one drawback of open source is that technical support is restricted to online forums. However, if needed, you can pay a little extra for technical support for you and your staff.
4. This brings me to my last and most important lesson, and that is to NEVER put your complete trust in technology. When I was young, I bought myself a small electronic organizer. After using it for about a year, I grew very attached to this small device. Imagine my shock when both the primary and backup batteries died at the same time, erasing all of my contacts. I was so upset that I decided never to use ‘fancy’ technology ever again. Of course, I soon realized that my blind trust in technology was more to blame than anything else. Also, the truth is, I was never really attached to the electronic organizer itself. The emotional attachment came from what was inside the organizer (i.e. all of my personal and professional contact information, birthdays, notes, etc.).
Machines can and will break down. How is your business taking this into account in day to day planning? For instance, I am trying to launch a language training institute targeting the corporate sector. Naturally, we will be using things like a laptop, projector, etc. to deliver presentations. However, on any given day, any or all these things can malfunction. Yet, this breakdown does not alleviate our responsibility to offer a superior product to our customer. This can be done without Power Point slides, without fancy multimedia, etc. Obviously, this is not always possible for all businesses, but the key point to remember is to have contingency plans in case of a breakdown in technology.
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