Apprentice Opportunity

Before starting our last company, I spent close to one year working in "start up boot camp" with a very successful entrepreneur on his third start up. The lessons learned were invaluable, and, I am convinced, had a great deal to do with the success of OneMade. Many of the lessons were very practical. Many were brilliant. Most of the lessons were counter-intuitive.

A fellow entrepreneur who I have huge respect for recently announced he was looking for an "apprentice to the CEO." Brilliant idea! Why not enable a person who wants to be an entrepreneur to work "live" with a start up? What better experience can a person have to help them improve the likelihood that they will be successful in the future on their own? I believed it enough to put myself through start up boot camp a number of years ago. So I should have put this into practice years ago. I have also had a number of people ask it they could play this role with me, so I decided it was time to see who might have an interest.

So here is the deal. If you are a person who aspires to be an entrepreneur and start your own business some day, and you want to join a start up now to gain experience, email your resume to me, and tell me more about why you think you should be "the one" to be in this role. These are some of the tasks that an early stage company, just taking down a pretty significant seed capital round, must manage:

• Developing a detailed business plan;
• Developing a detailed execution plan;
• Developing a detailed budgeting plan;
• Performing daily accounting, cash Management, and reporting;
• Developing a human capital strategy and plan;
• Developing a sales and marketing strategy & plan;
• Developing a distribution strategy and plan;
• Communicating with our investors and the venture capital community;
• Preparing for the next capital raising event;

• Plus a bloody lot more......

For someone seriously interested in being an entrepreneur, this is a valuable, and very live, opportunity to roll up your sleeves, get your hands dirty, and prove yourself. You will build direct relationships with venture capital firms as well as a very bright team of people who have all done this before.

Keep the following points in mind before making a decision on your interest:

• You will likely work like you have never worked before;
• Your work will have a direct impact on the success of our business, as well as the members of the team;
• The odds are ALWAYS stacked against us (and you by default) we are treading on the turf of giants who can squash us like a bug at any time;
• In order to succeed, we must first survive. Survival depends on many things, and execution of a plan based upon a strategy that is debated, and ultimately agreed upon, is critical to our chances of survival;
• This is not an internship. This is a long term commitment. We not know how long that is right now. It could be a year. It may be for a few years. Much of that will be up to our success, your long term interest, and the nature of the relationship that evolves with our team;
• We are located in upstate NY, in the Albany Capital District Area. If you do not want to be living in upstate NY, do not waste our time, or yours;
• We will be on the bleeding edge of Web 2.0, as well as participating in how the future of open source software (OSS), and software as a service (SAAS) evolves. Along with this opportunity comes inherent instability as business models are tested, refined, and defined. If you are uncomfortable in this zone, you may not sleep well at night!

if you are interested, e-mail me your resume and tell me why you are the one we should offer this opportunity to. Be creative! As we are on the way to closing on our seed capital in the next 30 days, you should be quite serious about getting involved pretty quickly. My email address is bphelan@gmail.com.