michael’s posterous

Right now I have a lot of motivation...motivation that is produced internally. I am the COO (Chief Operating Officer) of Ingam's Drain & Sewer Cleaning, Inc. I have been working there straight out of high school and realized that when your dad owns the joint you can have any fancy smancy job title. I was always weary of actually saying it aloud as I didn't believe in myself that I was worthy of having that title. All the COO's I knew were in business magazines, referenced in the WSJ or profiled on Forbes.com. Over the past year I dropped that mentality and realized that I am the COO of Ingram's and not be scared of it. 

I don't think there is any other company out there like Ingram's. It is my father's empire in which he controls every aspect of. He makes you believe you have a voice but you really don't. On the outside looking in, the company seems like a wonderful/happy company. Once you cross the barrier and become an employee thats when things change. I am not here to bash my father and his ways but just to talk about how I see things. 

My father has ran the company since the mid 80s. Back then things were much different. I always refer to that time as the "golden years". From the stories I hear this time period was the zenith of the company and it has been going downhill ever since. As we fast forward to 2009, so far this year has open my father's eyes. Being in the midst of a recession company sales have slowed considerably. During my time with the company this is the longest "slow period" I have experienced. When it gets slow, everybody feels. I hate seeing our employees having to go home early because their is no work. I feel that this rough patch has caused not to operate business as usual.

At Ingram's I am a versatile person within the company as I know how to do everything except "lay the pipe". I am working on getting my Master Plumber license. This is needed to pull permits within the city and cover myself if something should happen to my father. Even though it is not needed for me to perform plumbing work I need to know that things are performed to code. I believe you can find a lot of people who know how to plumb but you can't find a lot of people who know how to run a company. Over the years I have picked up a lot of invaluable skills from my father. These skills are something I could only gain with time. Just sitting back and watching how things are done in the real world helped me tremendously. 

2009 is going to be the year that defines Ingram's. There are a lot of changes my father wants to implement. The thing is that he is not going to be the one who initiate these changes or actually does them. This is something that has taken me too long to figure out. Even though this is his company I feel it is my responsibility to take the company to the next level. I have big dreams for Ingram's and what we can do in the city right now. What gets me going is knowing this is the time that my dreams can be realized and I have no one to blame but myself if they don't achieve my goal. Its no more finger pointing, no more playing Monday morning quarterback, its time to make things happen. This is my motivation.

Work hard and play later. If I want my dreams to become a reality it takes a combination of prayer, faith, hard work and dedication. 

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Earlier today I received an email from the good folks at Twitter saying they went with a different candidate for the Founder Associate position. I have to give it to Twitter because it was well written let down email. They learned from their mistakes and used a BCC when sending it to the applicants. It was little let down that I didn’t get the job but I knew it wasn’t in Gods plan. I am starting to learn that its not what I want but what he wants. I am not upset, just gotta put that behind me and look ahead. I really felt good about getting the job and potentially moving out to San Francisco but for whatever reason God wants me in Philly right now. I've talked with a very close friend and she said the same exact thing. Just as long as we keep doing what he wants us to do there will be something even bigger down the line waiting for us. Its hard for me to believe that all the time but I've been doing it my way and haven't had much luck.

I am still praying and talking with God on seeing what he wants me to do. I know for now I will probably be staying put in the family business. I love the “startup culture” that small businesses have when hitting the scene. Thats what drew me to Twitter, a company with about 30 employees and a killer product looking to grow. Over the past couple years I would look at the family business like that but everybody in the company didn't have that same mindset. Most of the people in the company look at it as a 9-5 and that’s it. I look at the family business as more than that, not just because my father owns it but because of where the company can go. To fill you in, the family business is Ingram’s Plumbing and is the largest black owned plumbing service company in Philadelphia.

Right now, I will go hard in taking Ingram’s to the next level. I feel I am sitting on a gold mine because of how fragmented the “plumbing game” is in the city. Open up the yellow pages and you will find tons of plumbers BUT nobody has taken over the game. It seems that every company is content with how they are doing. I have been working with the family business for about 8 years now and it is still the same as it was back then. I always say that one day some big company will come through and take over the plumbing industry just like Rite Aid did with the mom and pop pharmacies and Home Depot with the local hardware stores. That day hasn’t happened yet.

I am not a “plumber”, I know plumbing terms and whatnot but I don’t perform any plumbing work. I know how to run the company and been involved in every aspect of the day to day operations. I have my “journeymens” license but that’s just for credentials as you don’t have to perform any plumbing work to get licensed in the city. There aren't too many young bodies who are winning to change the game in Philly. There are so many ideas that run through my head each day that I can see happening in the future. Paperless paperwork, signing for an invoice on a tablet to paying for your plumbing work online and implementing a service plan program. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

I’ll be the first to admit that I have been coasting the past year. Sometimes I have to remind myself of not living for the moment. Yes I am young and thats what young people should do but those wanting to make a change think differently. I know I will have to be the catalyst that makes the change at Ingram’s. I know its not going to be hard and maybe that was what has been preventing me from doing it already. Enough is enough and I can’t talk about what I could’ve or should’ve done. Its a new day and time to bring the startup culture mindset to Ingram’s.

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I call myself a "techie" but I do not code or program. I do not have a computer science degree because I never went to college. I was using Prodigy back in the day on my 9600/kbps modem on DOS before Windows was around. I remember when I talked my dad into buying Windows 95, it came with 25+ floppy disks. I would consider myself a hacker but I will not discuss what "activities" I used to do. What I am trying to say, is it possible for an individual to start a website but not have all the common characteristics of those who do?

For about the past six months I have been serious about starting my website. Yes, there are a lot of websites around but I've did my research and this idea hasn't been taken yet. I always thought that some big newspaper company will take advantage of this concept but to my surprise they didn't. 

What gets the creative juices flowing through my body is each time I read a company getting funding for their new website. The founder(s) had an idea they were passionate about and took the necessary steps to assemble the team and acquire the funding. Don't get me wrong I know there is a lot of "other" things they had to do to get where they are but I am just pointing out the major steps they had to take.

My dream has been living in my mind for the longest. I see the final product and its something that I think about every single day. The problem is how do I get my dream and turn it into reality that materializes into that final product? I have the experience not necessarily in a tech company but in helping run a company with about 15 employees and close to $1M in sales. I gravitate to two things, business and technology. 

I started to look into Y Combinator and how they help people with tech related ideas get their idea into something more tangible. After reading their Q&A it feels like you have to know how to code to even get looked at. Like I said before I know nothing about coding but does that mean I dont have "it"? Thats not going to prevent me from filling out the application for their upcoming summer program. I know I have an awesome idea that will become big but its just getting the right people to hear it.

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