A Means to a...New Beginning

It's been three weeks since I left my non-profit job of 8 years and already it has been an amazing journey. People asked if I planned to take time off or if I would sleep in my first week, and the answer was no.

I literally, with no intention of doing so, hit the ground running the very next day after my last day at ICA. That Saturday I began touring pet shops with my friend and now new boss. With a different pair of eyes towards our new business venture, I was looking at product placement, packaging, etc. We checked out national establishments and independent shops as well.

On Sunday, Two friends who have been thinking about creating an art exhibition, asked me to meet up with them. I came away from that meeting as their project manager. My task was to keep them on schedule and handle all logistics for not just one show, but now potentially three shows if not an ongoing series. I suddenly had a new project to keep me busy.

On Monday, my boss said I need to come up with my own business name so that I can properly invoice his company for my work. So that night, without too much pondering I came up with a buisness name. We bought the domain name and created email addresses to go with it so that Tuesday I could walk into my boss' current place of business and sign in with confidence that I was representing a consulting firm that was there to assist with their online marketing sales.

On Thursday, one of the independent pet store companies that we visited on Saturday requested a meeting with my boss and I. They said they wanted to start selling pet products online and wanted advice. My boss essentially told them we could do it and that I would be the main point of contact. I nodded and smiled. Do I have any idea what I'm doing? No, not yet But I had my first legitable and billable client.

On Friday, I went to register my fictious business name with the county to make it legit and opened a small business account at my bank. The following week I built a very generic web site just so I had something for my "client(s)" to view should they want to find out more from my email address.

While trying to quickly come up with a company name that fateful Monday night, my husband suggested, with a straight face and a deadpan delivery, "Scrotum International."

So, why Cloud 8? while my web site explains most of the thinking behind the name, I left out the main inspiration. My name in Chinese actually means perfect cloud. While I'm not so perfect, I was also born on the 8th, which made 8 my lucky number growing up. The number 8 is also extremely lucky in Chinese. My web site goes on to explain that 8 is the common symbol for infinity and I believe that there are infinite possibilites to my new company. While cloud 9 refers to someone who has their head in the clouds because their euphoric and happy, I tout that I'm happy, but I've got one foot on the ground of reality. Hence, Cloud 8.

Why consulting? Meh, because it's vague enough to mean I can help with anything and that's what I'm doing. I'm doing a little bit of this and that.

Week three I ended up meeting with a couple of co-workers on two seperate occasions and I will now be helping them with their side businesses. I've got a meeting this week with another co-worker to assist her in her side business as well. And this week my boss and I will be concentrating the main reason he brought me on - to launch our own big pet product business. Stay tuned!!!

Hi. I'm a business owner. Look at me, look at me! Wow. Amazing.