Mike Levy - Consulting + more
Being laid off was still very scary after having worked for HP for so long - So Mike Levy went it alone and has made a fist of it. Read how Mike went about it and his thoughts and feelings whilst going through the process.
I now have my own successful consulting business and also now have the largest web-based rental listing service in Northern Colorado. I’m very happy, having a great time, and about to launch my fourth company!
So how did it all start?
Here’s my story:
I always tell people that Friday the 13th (September 2002) was the best day of my life. That was the day I was laid off from my job at Hewlett-Packard (HP) after 25+ years with the company. I had actually started working for HP since high school and then during the summers as I was going to college (UCSD and UCLA). Unfortunately, when I was laid off I was only 48 years old and was just two years short of being able to take advantage of the company’s early retirement program. But I really wasn’t bitter towards the company at all. It was unfortunate, but my dad always told me when I was growing up not to rely on Social Security or your company to take care of you, and I listened to him. So during my years working at HP, I put away some savings and bought some stocks and real estate investment property.
However, being laid off was still very scary after having worked for HP for so long. With the job market as tight as it was in Northern Colorado, I looked for a new job for several months and considered moving out of state for a job. But with two teenage daughters in school and a wife who was a teacher in the community, I was very reluctant to uproot the family after having lived there for more than seven years. It continued to be very tough and difficult trying to find another job. I paid a large sum of money to a “job finding” company that ended up netting me nothing! It was a very frustrating and emotionally depressing six months of my life.
I was never bitter about being let go, but I do understand being laid off can elicit feelings of anger and bitterness, but you have to limit the time you spend dwelling on that. I have never felt that a company is obligated to take care of me in any respect. I never had the expectation that HP owed me anything. They never told me that it was a job for life. It was for as long as they had a need for me.
Finally I realized that I needed to make something happen for myself. That is when I decided to do something I’d always wanted to do but was too scared to try with a “good job” and “nice salary coming in”. I started my own company. I had so much fun doing it, I’ve since (in the last 5 years) started three of my own companies, and one for someone else.
Looking back at the situation, I now think that my positive attitude and enthusiasm for my new projects and ventures might be part of the driving force behind my successes.
Since starting my first company, Levy Consulting, LLC, I have since launched another company (NorthernColoradoRentals.com) of my own, as well as helping other entrepreneurs start several companies themselves. Two of these companies are web-based residential rental property listing services. NorthernColoradoRentals.com is now the largest in Northern Colorado.
When I was starting my consulting business, the most difficult part was finding potential customers and “selling” my services. Up to that point in time I had not had much experience in selling. It was scary, difficult, and not too much fun. Eventually I learned to do a much better job “networking” within the community, and found that I was able to get almost all of my business through effective and ongoing networking.
Starting the rental website business was also a bit scary as I had never done something like this before. My partner and I were both putting up a significant amount of personal cash to get the business going, and we were taking a risk with hopefully a nice ROI if we were successful. We ran into many difficult challenges as we developed and launched the business, but by staying focused and diligent we were able to get past the tough issues and build a successful business that has now been in operation for 5 years!
I am now in the process of launching my fourth company which is another web-based business focused on providing local advertising services to other businesses and websites in Northern Colorado. I also belong to various entrepreneurial organizations in Northern Colorado (e.g. www.RMI2.org, etc.) which allows me to mentor and advise other entrepreneurs who are trying to start their own businesses themselves.
I’m not afraid of competition, in fact, I encourage it. When there is competition it just tells me there is a market for what I am doing. Being an entrepreneur is energizing – it’s fun to have an idea about something and see it come together.
Looking back, I can safely say that I will never go back. Getting laid off gave me the opportunity to do something I was too risk-adverse to do. What I learned at Hewlett-Packard was the basic skills and the skills to learn. If I want a big company now, I guess I’ll have to create my own.
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