I decided to try to make the move to a business that sounded like they would be prepared to ride out the upcoming recession in May of 2008. After being let go from that organization, I wasn’t sure what to do, especially since the company was supposed to have had the type of customers who would not be hit so hard by the down economy. I had always wanted to start my own company, however didn’t think I had enough knowledge at the time. I had also not known of any single-owner Civil Engineering company that had been around for a substantial amount of time. After speaking with a friend who had a government job (public works) as well as other previous co-workers, I decided why not dip my feet into the craziness that is known as the building industry. I was able to get in contact with a Civil Engineer who by chance was about to close up his shop because of unforeseeable events. The perfect storm brewed into what would be my first LLC. The LLC did well from the beginning as I had always kept in contact with everyone that mattered to me along the way. We had job referrals coming from various directions as we built up our brand awareness. We even started gaining a great reputation with recurring clients. All of this, with a new business that was less than one year old during the “Great Housing Depression Part 2” in Southern California. Then the partnership began to become wobbly. A partner had some situations where he had to depart the State and take care of his personal life. With two partners left, the falling apart of the LLC started. Now there wasn’t that third opinion, that we originally had, on what we would charge or how we would deal with projects. We decided to drop a couple of sizeable Downtown Los Angeles projects, and then began to propose prices that were too high for brand new work. This approach rather quickly reduced our profits! This is where I learned that not all engineers make good business-people. We basically ran ourselves into the ground even though we had this great reputation and client base. Not to mention the Architects we were working with preferred us to competing Civil Engineering businesses in the area. After dissolving the LLC, I wasn’t sure what I would do. I was pretty disheartened as I put my all into the one Civil Engineering firm. I spent almost 18 hours a day 6 days a week trying to do anything I could to find more business, work on plans, and make more cash. Fast forward about four months later with some pretty dark times in between and no real path, I decided why not go for my very own company all over again. I told myself that the end result couldn’t be any even worse. Plus I had a great friend that has his own Mortgage Company, telling me that it takes several business attempts before you are successful. I learned a lot, saw a lot, and wanted to make sure that I would not duplicate the same blunders from the original company. So here I am today, one Civil Engineering company dissolved that I began at the age of 29, starting a brand new venture at the age of 32, keeping very positive that my old mistakes will not be repeated. I hope this story gives hope to all of those who have struggled so hard in this demanding environment.