Starting a new business, which you want to succeed, takes more than just a good idea.  It takes courage, patience, funding and perseverance.  It has been an interesting and challenging experience to start the new businesses that we have started in the past 11 years.

First there were the hotels.  The design, raising the equity, the construction, FF&E decisions and purchases, hiring, training and then actually opening the doors and hoping for guests, Although there were lots of challenges and stress was unbelievable, it was certainly worth the risk, the adventure and the learning curve.

The employees were always a challenge.  We had a lower turnover rate than most hotels, we treated our employees with dignity, we listened to them and we appreciated what they did and told them so.  That may well be the reason that we retained employees for a longer period of time then our competition.  We didn't pay the highest wages in town, but the staff kept telling us they were happy working for us. 

Selling the last hotel in June of this year was sad in some ways but such a relief.  Since the sale I can actually say that I have not missed the hassle at all.  No more calls with problems, no more worrying about the pool, hot tub, type of shampoo, taxes, payroll, grounds keeper, revenue or anything else.  The amount of joy that we had running and owning the hotel was worth the stress for awhile, but it's wonderful to have it gone!

Now we have another business up and running.  It doesn't have 18 employees, three floors and high utility bills.  It's a beautiful office where we will have no more than 4 employees and great hours with no late night phone calls.  It's back "home" in Des Moines which is rather nice although I'm not sure how long we will stay in the city.  Once the office is running smoothly we will consider other locations and leave the office running under the management of someone else.  We will still own it, still stay on top of it, but may not be there on a daily basis.  That is part of why we are doing what we are doing, the freedom to be elsewhere and still generate income.