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Lemonade Maker: Jim Dowd, IT Entrepreneur

Profiles of people who are seeing opportunity in a pile of economic lemons.

Jim Dowd, 40
Gloucester, MA

Before recession: Technology Strategist
Now: Entrepreneur and Co-founder, HelpGuest Technologies. HelpGuest connects people who need tech support with people who can provide it.

When did you notice a shift in the economic climate?

In the summer of 2005 I was running simultaneous research projects, one for a start-up charter private air service, the other for an online lending company. On the one hand, I was interviewing super-rich people, many of whom worked in finance; the kind of people who regularly say things like, “let’s get a jet and go golfing on Nantucket this weekend!” On the other, I was talking to regular middle-class folks who were taking more and more money out of their houses in the form of home equity loans. When I would ask what that loan was for everybody, every single one admitted that beyond home improvements they were paying-off credit card debt and doing some combination of things like going on vacation, buying cars, boats, second homes and vacations on the valued equity of their houses.

During this time I was having drinks with a very smart friend of mine in Cambridge, an analyst. I told her what I had noticed, and she said, “You mean to tell me these guys are flying around on the imaginary profits from imaginary house values? This will not end well…” She was right.

What was your “aha” moment?

For a while, I had been thinking about the technology of helping people with their tech problems by using remote access (screen sharing). The idea came about because my brother-in-law, Mark Abrahms, and I were always being called upon to help friends and family with their technology problems. You get sort of sick of trying to describe what people should be seeing, and then struggling to figure out why they are not seeing it. The remote access part of HelpGuest was the classic “necessity as the mother of invention.” More accurately, in our case, necessity of your mother needing to be able to PDF a document at 11:30 when you just want to go to bed.

The business model was where the real “Aha!” came. We were screwing around trying to figure out what to do with this remote access thing now. Friends were being laid off right and left, and some were staring their own companies and freelance practices. We were literally getting interrupted by the phone while we were trying to figure out what to do with the technology by people who were prime candidates for adopting it. And it still took us a while to catch on. Finally, one of us said, “Dude, you know all those people who keep calling who either need help or could be helping people using remote access? Why don’t we build the product out for them.” Aha.

How are you making lemonade?

We want to be the good guys. Remember Jimmy Stuart’s character George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life?” How he used his business to make people’s lives better during hard times? That’s who we want to be.

With all of the layoffs and companies going under, a lot of people have been cut adrift. Either they have been pushed out from under the corporate IT support umbrella or they have support to give but no means by which to offer it efficiently without the context of a corporation. That’s the niche we fill. We’re providing support to people who need someone to make the stuff work the way it’s supposed to for their new ventures. At the same time, we’re offering the opportunity to people who have support to give at their own terms and at whatever wage the market will support. We’re just providing the conduit. The needs are there at both ends.

How is your business model tailored to new economic realities?

Technology is no longer a luxury at a time like this. For many of us, our home computer was secondary to the one sitting in our cube, which was heavily IT supported. Our home machine was where we did email and Facebook and kept our media files. It was sort of a plaything. Now, in this economy it’s suddenly vital. It’s your window to the world and it’s where you make your living. The economy that’s pushing us to be a nation of freelancers means that we have to think about how we’re supporting those machines and users- both from a cost benefit perspective and the methodology of doing so. Can I afford to take my sole connection to the outside world to a shop where they’ll keep it for three days and then charge me nearly a week’s salary? Are these people actually any good, are they any better than the people I know and trust? These questions are really up right now.

We’re also particularly suited to the new reality of lots of talented, capable laid-off people out there in the way our expert model works. HelpGuest doesn’t solve your problem, the expert does. HelpGuest is just the conduit the expert uses to make it happen (in the same way eBay is the conduit someone uses to sell a mint-condition 1975 Peanuts lunchbox). The expert is working on their own machine, on their own time, and setting their own rates. Our job is providing the experts with the tools to sell their skills. We handle the remote access connection, PayPal and the rating system. I encourage anyone with a strong skill set in an application to sign up and let people know that you’re out there. This is how to take advantage of those skills on your own terms. And there are so many people who need help. Looking at my Facebook page and Twitter, it’s a constant barrage of people angry at Vista, Photoshop, Excel, Blackberries and even iPhones. Help is out there. Connect them to it.

Any tips for other readers thinking of starting a new venture?

You know what the hardest thing is? Amazingly, it’s the fact that most people still don’t get the whole entrepreneur thing. We talk a good game, but for a country built on small businesses and start-ups, there is still a huge “get a job” mentality. At cocktail parties and barbecues people ask you, “Where do you work?” The Postwar period really left us as a country of employees, mentally. Somehow the safe thing even in 2009 is perceived as a good job with benefits and a pension. Yet we all know that reality died in the early eighties, alongside multiple neon bracelets and the Trapper Keeper. Like those, good riddance.

So, the biggest advice I can give is to find a group of entrepreneurs. I don’t care if some of them are technology start-ups and some of them are artists and some are septic system installers. Amongst them all you’ll find a different attitude there than in corporate life. Politics disappear, and appearances will suddenly mean nothing. You don’t need to ask for business advice or anything, just have drinks or coffee with these folks and hear how different their day-to-day concerns are form the cube farm. It’s like waking up and finding yourself freed from “The Matrix.” Much of it is scary, but you’ll never feel more alive.

Read about more Lemonade Makers here.

Tags: computers, entrepreneur, IT, Lemonade Makers, technology