(real names changed to protect the innocent)
Well, it's Monday, December 18th, a week before Christmas, and I'm completely broke. I've got $10 left in my bank account, all my credit card providers are calling to collect their past due amounts I owe them. My one and a half year old is in the hospital, with my wife there looking after him, with a feeding tube trying to recover from diarrhea-induced dehydration. My mother-in-law is folding laundry here, my 11-year old is recovering from his own bout of diarrhea, lying on the sofa in the family room watching The Disney Channel. My niece and nephew are playing on the keyboard, my 14-year old daughter, with the other queens of the neighborhood, is out socializing, playing, “hanging-out', or whatever she calls whatever she does! Oh, and I'm sitting here at the kitchen table, about 30 lbs. overweight, sleep-deprived, starting this diary about starting my business and in general about being a family man with 4 kids, a wife, and a dog.
How did I get here?
The Context: Our Fourth Son
I actually want to start all the way back to February 4th, 2005, on the eve of my fourth son Christian's birth. My wife was having her hair done in another part of town, and as she was going through an intersection with a two-way stop (she didn't have the stop, the cross-traffic did), a truck broadsided the van she was driving on the middle left of the van, just behind her driver's seat. If it had hit just a few feet in front, it surely would have killed her and my unborn son. As it happened, the van was almost totaled, she was very shaken, but sustained no life-threatening injuries. The ambulance arrived, said they didn't have to transport her to the hospital, but recommended we urgently take her to the maternity ward where we were planning to have the baby to have the fetus monitored.
When we got to the hospital, they immediately attached a heart-rate monitor to her and hooked it up to a machine. The signs were bad. The impact and trauma of the crash made her have very heavy braxton-hicks contractions, which were just like birth-day contractions. After each contraction the baby's heartbeat slowed down. This was known as “heart decelerations.” The doctor on duty, a dry, uninteresting looking guy with very close-cropped hair to hide is baldness and thick-rimmed glasses, said that we had to induce immediately because heart decelerations were dangerous and were signs of possible infant stress, trauma, and possible future brain damage or death.
They administered the standard birth-inducing fluid: pitocin drip fed into her IV. Her contractions came very strongly, and throughout the night and into the morning she was extremely uncomfortable, and making zero progress. By that evening she had only dilated 1 cm, and the doctor noticed heart decelerations again. He recommended an immediate emergency C-section.
This was literally adding salt to the wound. First a traumatic crash, then 12 hours of induced labor, and now emergency c-section. My beautiful wife Joanna, 2nd daughter of 3 girls, and 4th child of 5 children to her mother, was going through the worst mental anguish anybody could possibly go through. I felt helpless and desperate, not knowing what to do, how to calm her, how to feel, react, etc. Jo-jo, as everybody calls my wife, was nervous, would cry, would fall into a disturbed sleep, and finally calmed down after the hospital staff administered an epidural. They actually gave her the epidural (the first of her four births) before they decided on the c-section, due to the pain of the induced contractions. However, the epidural was exactly what she needed for the c-section.
What freaked me out was that she was going to be conscious during her operation, with only her waist down asleep. I of course, being a man, had to do the manly thing of being with her during the operation. However, I was scared shitless about it, and spent the whole time, in my scrubs and mask, standing behind my wife. They had raised a sheet around her as if it were a completely flat and vertical skirt, so that all the action that was going on at her belly was hidden behind the sheet. I was protected from all the gory details, and spent my time holding her head, kissing her forehead, comforting her, talking to her, telling her it was going to be alright.
I also remembered to bring the video camera with a fresh videotape.
I finally heard somebody say, I can't remember if it was the doctor or a nurse, that they had the head, and before I knew it they had the body of my beautiful little son held high while they were cutting the umbilical cord. They immediately took him to a table where they cleaned up him, and I instinctively started shooting. After they had wrapped him up initially, they took him to my wife's face so she could see him and talk to him. She started kissing him, and I was riveted to the LCD screen on the camera. I started to cry, and half sobbing told her to talk to him. She started talking to him, telling him “it's mommy, it's mommy.” the nurse holding my son instinctively moved his head closer to my wife's and he was now able to clearly hear my wife's voice. After every little sentence she cooed to him, he would let out a little cry of recognition. This got my tears flowing even more. It was the most beautiful moment I had ever observed.
The next two weeks were a roller-coaster of emotions: hope, fear, despair, anger, happiness, and physical stress as well. Our new baby, Christian, had low blood sugar, and they would not let us take him home until his blood sugar reached a sustainable level above 60 without artificial means. In other words, he had to maintain his blood sugar level through the use of the bottle or through breastfeeding. He was subjected to multiple needle sticks in order to administer the IV he needed. That ceased to work after a while because his little veins were too small to hold the needle. Then they tried the IV through his stomach, but that didn't work. Finally they had to try to keep his blood level up with a feeding tube.
It was an excruciating schedule for my wife. She insisted on breastfeeding him, and of course the nurses complied, but she was subjected to a rigorous schedule of every 3 hours. Since he was so small (5 lbs.) and weak, he could not stay awake long enough to drink enough breast milk. She had to supplement her direct breastfeeding with her own breast milk, expressed by a breast pumping machine, using a bottle. The rest of the expressed breast milk was fed to him via the feeding tube.
I became a chauffer, taking my kids to school, taking new changes of clothes to my wife at the hospital, getting her food, getting myself coffee.
We went through many heartbreaking disappointments during this two week period. The nurses would check his blood sugar levels every three hours. After 2 or three sustained high levels of blood sugar, they would stop using the feeding tube to see how Christian held up on his own steam: just breast milk fed by mommy. The blood sugar levels would go down again, getting us back to square one, and bringing us to a new emotional low.
Another scary moment was when they discharged my wife from the hospital while our baby was still in neo-natal care. This was literally like tearing our baby away from her. She had to spend her 2 hour sleeping time between feedings at home. She was actually given permission to sleep through a feeding because the nurses had enough of her breast milk. This was MUCH NEEDED sleeping time. However, the separation anxiety on her was terrible, and terribly unfair. The hospital staff noticed this and offered her an unused room “off the books.” This became her dormitory for the rest of the 2-week ordeal.
The last few days were like light shining on a flooded land. After a while they took out the feeding tube, and Jo-Jo was feeding Christian with her breast and breast milk in a bottle. Blood sugar tested above 50, then above 60, and then for 3 different tests, consistently, above 60. Then she tried feeding him exclusively from her breast (which had been her goal from the beginning), and success! Blood sugar never dipped below 60, and sometimes hit the 70s or 80s.
The day we were allowed to bring Christian home was the happiest day of our lives. The house had a magical air about it, with the new addition. The house all of a sudden became very quiet, calm and serene. Mommy and baby did not leave the bedroom for another two weeks, except every now and then to get fresh air or to give the odd visitor (of which there were many) a peak.
The next year and a half, up to the present, with our son Christian Alexander Turner, has been one big roller-coaster. He was diagnosed with hypotonia, or low muscle tone. We noticed he wasn't rolling over when he was supposed to, didn't like being on his stomach, didn't have a standing reflex if you held him with your hands facing you, and seemed to take a long time to focus his eyesight on people.
We took him to a neurologist, geneticist, to get an MRI, skeletal x-rays, blood tests, physical therapists, the works. We even took him all the way to Philadelphia with us so Jo-Jo and I could attend a week-long course on “What to Do About your Brain Injured Child.” Even though nobody knew specifically what caused his low muscle tone, it was generally concluded that it was due to some type of brain-injury.
The organization in Philadelphia where we went was called the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential. This is an institution based on the premise that many so-called disabilities, such as autism, brain-damage, cerebral palsy, etc., are all brain-injury of one sort or another. A friend of ours whose son was diagnosed with Down's Syndrome turned us on to the Institutes, and when we first went to the website I went into denial. My son was not brain-damaged. He was alert, he smiled, he didn't have any weird behaviors or character traits, he just was slow at reaching his milestones.
However, in going through the online questionnaire it began to dawn on me that he might be brain-injured. I submitted the questionnaire and got a response shortly thereafter that yes, indeed, he was brain-injured, and we thus qualified for taking the course on “What to Do About your Brain Injured Child.” I thought: that was very convenient. They very quickly, almost too quickly in my opinion, diagnosed him with brain injury, and “approved” us for the course, which cost about $1000. Yeah, I'm sure they were falling all over themselves to approve us.
I called them up to find out a little bit more about the organization. The woman on the other end of the phone was rather short, dry and humorless, and told me “if you want to take the course, you and your wife have to read the book first.” I immediately bought the book, and as with all books devoured it and became obsessed with it. We received a 2nd copy from our friend with the Down's Syndrome son, and told my wife “read it, we both need to read it before they'll let us sign up for the course.” Well, we both read at different speeds, and we both have a different relationship with books. It took her forever to pick it up and even read the first chapter. Jo-Jo is more of a doer than a reader. She's constantly doing something: cleaning, re-arranging furniture, painting, installing a new light-bulb, or running errands. Picking up a book and sitting down quietly to read is counter-intuitive for her, and makes her feel like there's something better she could be doing with her time.
Well, I wanted to hurry up and register for the March course, as it was already December, so I called the dry, humorless lady again to tell her about our status. “have you both read the book?” She said. “No. Well, I've finished it, but my wife is barely starting it...can't I just tell her what the book is all about?” “If your wife had not read the book then she cannot attend. It's that simple.” So direct, so cold, this couldn't possibly be a hard sales pitch that I had secretly suspected in the back of my head. These people must be serious and sincere, and really want us to truly understand the principles of brain-injury and recovery communicated in the book, so that when we attended the course it wouldn't be like it was coming out of the blue.
Well, Jo-Jo finally read the book but we ended up registering for the June 2006 course. We thought it best to wait till school finished for the kids, and for there to be a bit more money for the trip.
The Startup Beginnings: Idea, False-Start, and Re-Start
I spoke of the drama of our firstborn to set the emotional and personal context for starting my new entrepreneurial venture. I think some would say, by initially looking at this situation, “what a bad time to be starting a business.” Actually, on the surface, it does look like a bad time to be bringing instability into the lives of myself and my family. During this time of challenges with my son Christian, when we're looking for ways to find out what is causing his low-muscle tone (I am happy to say that now he is crawling all over the place, thanks in part to the new in-home therapy program we designed as a result of the course we took at “The Institutes” in Philadelphia), taking him various doctors and clinics, and having multiple tests administered, this is the time when we need the security of me staying at a nice, stable job.
I believe to this day that I didn't choose the timing of this business, it chose me. The perfect storm of events and people crossing my path.
Again, let's go back in time a little bit, this time to a time before Christian was even a glimmer in our eyes. Dec./Jan. 2003-2004, Christmas holidays. My parents, Betty and Alexis, were about to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. How did they want to celebrate it? With all of us kids and grandkids. So they generously offered my sister and I a four-day pass to Disney World in Orlando for our families, plus a stay in one of the Disney World resort properties, the Port Orleans resort in Disney's French Quarter.
We caravaned our way out there. Jo-Jo and I took turns driving our Ford Windstar, with our kids Anthony, Amanda and Benjamin, and Bret and Olivia Scolari, my brother-in-law and sister, drove their nice little Lexus mini-SUV with their kids Nikki and Peter. My parents took turns riding with us or with the Scolaris. It took us four days to get to Orlando from where we lived, because, at my father's recommendation, we took the relaxed approach to driving there. We would generally get started at 10 in the morning, and stop driving at 6 or 7 PM.
Some of the more memorable moments were walking on the beach on a beautiful, brisk, breezy cold morning in Pensacola Florida, and eating Cajun food near the University of Florida campus in Gainesville.
When we finally got to Orlando we were so excited, especially as we entered the Disney World Resorts property. This is a little city unto itself, with it's own streets, police ambulance and fire services, and beautiful hotels and theme parks everywhere. It's also a maze, making it easy to get lost if you're not a map geek like me.
The Port Orleans resort was fantastic. It was set up like a condo complex, with groups of three story buildings grouped around their own exclusive pools. Each grouping was arrayed around a larger circle of walkways and canals that surrounded a central “island” that featured the central pool, with slides, waterfalls and a bar. The canal that surrounded the central pool weaved through the grounds of the hotel, and eventually disappeared to eventually end up at Downtown Disney. There were regular passenger boats that shuttled people between Downtown Disney and Port Orleans.
The décor of the resort was of course New Orleans French Quarter style, but Disney sanitized.
The rooms themselves were fairly comfortable, and we were able to squeeze all five of us into two double beds and a cot.
The five days we spent there were some of the most memorable of our lives. We went to all four of the theme parks: Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom, MGM Studios, and Epcot Center. We received the New Year at Downtown Disney, with Disney's signature fireworks display over the artificial lake, illuminating all the shops, restaurants, and crowds that had gathered for the event. It was also beautiful to see the other fireworks displays of some of the other parks, like Magic Kingdom and Epcot, in the distance, from our vantage point in Downtown Disney.
Ok, so before you think this is pure propaganda for Disney World, let me get to the crux of the matter: the relevance of this to my entrepreneurial venture.
I had just started a career-changing job three months earlier at a video and broadcast products company. For eight years I had been in the computer and Internet hardware and software industry, most recently having worked for 3 Internet start-ups that had either bombed due to the NASDAQ crash of 2000 or experienced severe financial difficulties. I decided to jump at the opportunity to change careers, offered to me by a friend of mine, and joined a broadcast products supply company. I was now selling camcorders, switchers, routers, video monitors, non-linear editing systems, etc.
All of a sudden, I started noticing TV. TV had just been a part of life, a thing you watch when you've got nothing to do, something that can be on in the background or something that you may want to schedule because there is something interesting on. However, now I actually watched it on purpose wondering: what kind of cameras are they using? Was this produced by the local TV affiliate or by the network? Is the quality of the videography and the script high or low?
One of the channels available on our hotel's television set was a silly little Disney channel, amongst about 10 Disney channels (this was Disney World, after all, there's no such thing as too many Disney Channels), about what to do while you're visiting Disney World. It was called “Walt Disney World Top 7 Must Sees” (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2726151869110888249&q=%22top+7%22+disney+world), and it had this cute yet annoying, peppy, corny, cheesy, funny hostess called Chryssa. It was actually very entertaining, taking the viewer on a tour of all the Disney World theme parks, while counting down from the 7th to the number 1 “must-see” at Disney World.
What surprised me was how my kids were riveted to the TV set watching this program! They didn't watch their usual shows on Nickelodeon or the normal Disney Channel. They watched this nearly 30 minute show over and over and over again. I watched it over and over again too.
Chryssa was so bubbly, cute and over-the-top, and even slightly insulting when she would imitate the different accents at the international pavilions. The style of shooting was kind of like the E! Channel's “Wild-On” show, or MTV's “Cribs” show: fast camera moves, lots of zoom-ins and outs, and edited for quick scene transitions.
We actually did end up going to some of the rides recommended by this little show. The number 1 ride was Mission Space, the one that simulates actually being in a space capsule going to Mars, with real G-Force and a realistic video to make believe you're seeing Mars approach from your spaceship's window. I didn't actually end up going to this, because at the last minute my oldest son Benjamin, who was 12 at the time, had a nervousness-induced stomach ache, and I had to take him back to the hotel room. I didn't end up going on this ride until two years later, when we went to Disney World again for Anthony's (who was 9 years old by then) 3 vs. 3 national soccer tournament.
This little show stuck in my mind. However, it wasn't until a year and a half later that this would figure into conscious decision-making regarding my start-up business.
A lot of things happened in the year and half that transpired. I started selling more video equipment, doing business with different kinds of businesses and traveling to new cities where I was exposed to more TV channels.
Four more things happened that pointed into the direction of my business. First, in the summer of 2005 I participated in a broadcast trade-show in Mexico on behalf of a manufacturer I represented. This company made small, compact and inexpensive media servers and automation systems that essentially allowed a small outfit to run a whole TV channel with just one or two people. The general manager of a hotel group in Mexico was very interested in this product as he wanted to run his own channel in his hotels in order to add value to his guests' stay, and further monetize them.
Secondly, this same manufacturer threw a lead my way for a resort in Cancun, Mexico, that already had it's own channel. I made a sales trip to Cancun, stayed at this beautiful resort for free, and saw their beautiful, but small, broadcast facility! This resort essentially ran a small, 24/7 television channel for it's 2000 rooms!
Thirdly, I went to a wedding in Panama City Beach, Florida, where one of the channels available on the local cable network was a tourist channel, dedicated to showing tourists to this Florida Panhandle beach resort all there is to do. Dining, Nightlife, Family attractions (Beach TV was the name of the channel. Check it out at http://www.tripsmarter.com/). That's all it was. It wasn't Emmy-award winning stuff, but it was entertaining, like the Disney resort channel.
Finally, I had made the acquaintance of a serial entrepreneur and pastor, who also, indirectly, was a customer of mine. During one conversation he explained to me how easy it was to run a small low power television channel, and how much money it could earn. “Sure you can start a channel like this yourself....and all you need is about $1 million to buy the license for the on-air spectrum.”
What? I told him I didn't have that kind of money just laying around, so he told me the next best thing I could do would be to start a hotel channel. He then proceeded to tell me all about a channel he started, and how to go about it and how easy it was.
Alright, I was hooked. Everything seemed to be pointing in the same direction. The signs were all there. It couldn't have been a coincidence that after being exposed to all these hotel channels, that somebody was telling me that was a business I could start.
He said “all you need is a hot-dog video guy.” I asked him what that was. “You know those go-getter hot dog stand sales guys, the ones who start with nothing and then buy themselves a little hot dog stand and set themselves up in business?” “Yes,” I said. “Well, you're looking for a hot dog videographer. Somebody who bought himself his own equipment, and is willing to do what it takes to make it, but has no idea how to sell himself.”
Cool, that would be easy. How the hell was I going to find a hot dog videographer? I made some phone calls and sent emails to the video departments at some local community colleges and high schools.
In talking about my idea to an ex-colleague of mine at one of my old dotcom companies, he said “hey, you remember old Brian? He's into film now and just filmed his first full-length feature film entirely with a video camera.” Brian was another ex-colleague of mine, a mutual acquaintance of ours, who was one of those quiet, non-obtrusive web designer types. We had always been cordial, but I remember the most extensive conversation we had ever had was what was his favorite debt relief organization. Apparently he had now learned how to shoot video, and had filmed a whole movie entirely on a shoestring budget! Impressive.
Well, to make a long story short, Brian and I got together, he immediately saw the value in the business, and we decided to become equal partners in this new business venture to start a hotel television channel. Happy ever after. Not!
Well, things started out ok. I made some initial market research phone calls to some hotels, and a week later got a call back from one of the largest and most prestigious hotels in our city. They wanted know if we had a channel, and if we could meet with them. Sure I could meet them. But I had absolutely nothing to show them. Luckily Brian, having come from the dotcom world himself, was up for the task. We could make nothing look like something. Wasn't that what those brash young entrepreneurs of the dotcom boom were famously good at? Making investors believe they had a paradigm-shifting company when all they had was a crazy idea and a business plan written on a dinner napkin?
The first meeting was with a marketing consultant for the hotel, and it went well. Brian showed her some video samples of his work that helped me to get a next meeting with the hotel management team.
Somehow, reality has a way of intruding itself into things. During this whole time I had gotten fired from my job, and in order to feed my family and pay the mortgage had to get another job. I realized I was going to have to hit the ground running, and thus I had limited free time to get my new business off the ground. However, instead of coming right out and telling Brian this, I inadvertently let him know this by standing him up for our big meeting with the hotel's management team. Big mistake.
The day we had the meeting with hotel management was the day that I had my first initial company conference call with my new job. This went on forever, and when it finally finished I half-heartedly got ready for the meeting. I was starting to feel depressed, realizing I was going to have to spend so much time getting acquainted with the new products and procedures of my new job, depriving time from my new business I was starting. I was having thoughts of “why bother going to the meeting anyway...” and “...this is just another pipe dream I'll never be able to do...” Sure enough, my thoughts manifested themselves into reality, and when I finally showed up at the meeting place it had already started. I called Brian frantically on his cell phone to let him know I was showing up and to wait up for me, but he had left the phone in his backpack and turned it to silent.
Well, this did NOT sit well with Brian. He sent me an email later saying he felt stupid that I didn't show up, and that I had shown myself to be unreliable, and if he was going to get this company off the ground he needed to work with reliable people.
I couldn't believe what I was reading. This was MY company that I started. My idea. My hotel that returned MY phone call. And at the same time, his email let me off the hook. I could go back to my new full-time gig, back to the safe cocoon of “reality,” and not have to face the time and effort required to build a company from scratch, part-time and with no money.
A second chance (...post coming next)
