We Will Survive!

Posted by Adam Pieniazek | News | March 16th, 2009

When we started The 42nd Estate last April we set only one goal for the company, to survive our first year. Having previously started two companies, PC Experience (a computer repair service) and Open The Board Room (a customer service and consulting portal), I knew that just getting off the ground is a difficult task in and of itself.

PC Experience achieved a few sales but we quickly dissolved a few months later due to the three founders going to different colleges (U. of Southern California, Northeastern U. and U. of Massachusetts at Amherst). Plus, we had loftier goals than simply repairing computers for our entire careers. Open The Board Room was started after we were all done with our college careers, however it had very lofty goals and we were disillusioned by the idea that we thought we could be quickly bought out by a larger company. We never even made it to the working model phase.

Thus, when starting The 42nd Estate, we decided to keep things simple for the first year and work as hard as possible to spend as little money as possible in order to stay afloat through the first year. As we approach our one year anniversary, it brings me great pleasure to announce that we will achieve that goal! We will survive.

A review of our current capital holdings reveals that our finances are strong and that we will be able to cover all foreseeable costs for the next year. We do not think that we will have to raise any additional capital and we are projecting that we will be profitable by the end of next year!

The lesson that this first year has taught us is to not underestimate how difficult it is to simply survive. The 42nd Estate was founded in the middle of a recession, and will survive the end of this recession. We’ve recently completely revamped our design, expanded our service offerings, and completed our latest capital infusion. The future looks bright and we hope you’ll follow along with us as we move forward.

We are you are us and we will survive!

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14 Responses to “We Will Survive!”

  1. Congrats – Surviving in this environment is a testament to your will!

  2. Thanks Paul. It sure hasn’t been easy but our future is looking very bright, even in our current environment. All I can really say is that there’s a lot of exciting stuff in store for The 42nd Estate and our fans in the future.

    Oh, I can also mention this. We’ll soon be hosting three contests to celebrate our one year anniversary with the following prizes:

    -pair of Celtics playoff tickets
    -cash money
    -free year of blog hosting

    More details to come soon in a blog post!

  3. Congratulations!!!

    Daniel Rechel
  4. Thanks Daniel!

  5. […] are hosting a super easy contest their blog. They hold this contest to celebrate their upcoming one year anniversary on April 8th. Its’ easy cause all you need to is simply leave a comment on contest post. […]

  6. […] the company I co-founded will be turning one on April 8th! It’s been a long, tough year but we will survive. To celebrate this great occasion we’re holding three contests, two of which we’ve […]

  7. To tell you the truth, sometimes I miss the people from work. I had a great team at the last place I worked.

    If you want to save money, and you do your work on the Internet, come to Costa Rica. I have a great 2 bedroom apartment with a kick ass view in Costa Rica for $400 a month. I don’t even need to make $1000 a month to live here, so I can put more money into my future projects

    Congrats on your move from cube life, sounds like you are enjoying it. What’s The 42nd Estate? Email me some info, I am interested in seeing what you guys are up to.

    This comment was originally posted on Life of Justin

  8. That’s what the social web is for Jim! A bunch of my former colleagues have found me via linkedin or facebook and we reconnect there. Sometimes, I do miss working with people around me (work from my home office/nearest coffee shop with wi-fi), but not enough to go back to cube world. Plus, I engage in a lot of networking events in Boston.

    I’ve been considering moving out of the country for a while, but right now Boston is hitting the spring time weather, I just suffered through a New England winter, gotta enjoy the summer!

    The 42nd Estate is a freelance writing and blog consulting firm. We also publish content on our own blogs. There’s a few areas we might expand to but right now we’re focusing on those two areas, and providing wordpress web hosting.

    This comment was originally posted on Life of Justin

  9. Yeah I’ve been thinking of moving out of the country. Possibly somewhere in Costa Rica or Argentina.

    I just need to get a few more things in place before I make the leap.

    This comment was originally posted on Life of Justin

  10. It is fun in a new country, but there are a few things to get use to. Nothing that isn’t manageable.

    BTW – I like the photo in this one..

    This comment was originally posted on Life of Justin

  11. Awesome post! I really want to to escape the cubicle myself. Unfortunately, I don’t know anything about online business so I think it’s time to learn!

    This comment was originally posted on Life of Justin

    Bill H.
  12. Bill, you don’t necessarily need an online business, take whatever you do now, and see if you can freelance that skill on the side while you build a savings safety net.

    The web helps with finding gigs, promoting yourself and streamlining everything but you don’t necessarily need an online presence, though it is highly recommended. Even a simple blog would help bring in clients and work if you can write about what you do.

    Feel free to send me an e-mail if you’d like to discuss it a bit more.

    This comment was originally posted on Life of Justin

  13. […] On April 8th, The 42nd Estate officially turned one year old. Like most small startups, our first year was not profitable. However, we did not set out with the aim of being profitable in our first year. Instead, we set only one goal: survive our first year. […]

  14. congrats on being cubicle free! death to the cubicle! lets do it office space style!

    This comment was originally posted on Life of Justin

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