Something4Everyone was registered as a Ficticious Name entity in Missouri's Secretary of State Office in November 2022 to be used as a DBA for my LLC, Rolla's Jolley Trollee, after plans went south due to sudden personal life events that displacement caused my husband and me to relocate to an area where similar services were already in place. Rolla's Jolley Trollee, LLC would have been a three-route public transportation system for the college town, Rolla, Missouri, where Missouri S&T is located. When school is in session, the population of Rolla's main geographical area almost doubles. Many students are not from Rolla, leaving them in a new environment with no reliable transportation; options for public transportation are limited to privately owned, over-worked taxi drivers. Crowds of pedestrians can be seen walking across town all day long.
I began the planning process on New Year's Day 2021. I had no prior knowledge of how to plan, manage, organize or fund a business except what I had picked up in college courses in partial degrees over the years. From the age of 16, when both of my parents became business owners, I watched how theirs grew and wondered if I could do it, too. Silly mistakes and bad decisions postponed my plans, but thirty years later, something in the air of 2021 told me this was my time, do or die. I never forgot what I had wanted to do. I didn't have a lot of money, but I had time and ambition and the strength to commit to making an effort to better my life and my community. My children were raised, and I felt confident my husband would support my decision. (To be honest, and I don't intend to insult anyone, but after waiting 30 years to complete a goal, I now realize why the divorce rate of entrepreneurs is so high.) There is never a perfect time to do anything, but never doing anything only leaves regret. I told my husband my plans ('That's great.'); asked him if he had any previous experience ('I helped my exwife out with what i could when I was overseas."); asked him for his advice ("do good research"); reminded him that when we first moved to Rolla he said the town could use something like this; and asked if he wanted to participate ("I'd rather not, but you have my best wishes"); and told him to stay out of my way and let me do my business my way. No disrespect, no attitude. Just ground rules.
So begins my renewed relationship with the Internet, Google, LinkedIn, howtowriteabusinessplan.com, and the local library. Once that ball started rolling, the more i learned, the more I found that i wanted to learn more about. My business plan was written within the first week and a half; three routes mapped and scheduled, I began reaching out to businesses along my routes, and I still have the Facebook group, "Ride Wit Me" (Like Nelly's song), where people can offer and exchange free, cheap or trade rides. I met with the Public Works Director, City Planner, and Business License Office about posting 'Trollee Stop' signs, who would install and pay for the signs, and driver and business licensing ordinances. The research phase was getting to the point where I needed to start talking to investors, which has always been a little tricky for me and remains a challenge still. I was just starting to research investment options and processes when the Great Missouri Weatherman raised his hand and cleared his throat.
The entire first week of February, temperatures dropped remained in the single digits. Our mobile home's furnace filter went out, disabling the heating coil under the rear end of the trailer and causing the ice to form around the plumbing pipe fittings underneath. By the end of the week, our mobile home was flooded due to the pipes bursting in six places, leaving us without running water. Our rural trailer park had just been bought out by a Texas-based corporation, and the new property manager bought us six feet if tubing and enough fittings to replace the damaged connections. Our new lease agreement, signed less than a week prior, made us responsible to find someone to do the maintainence repair and pay for all costs involved. We had never had these responsibilities because most renters don't. That is the reason most renters rent. We were clueless where to start, and after weeks of 'roughing it', carrying buckets of water and borrowing neighbors' showers, my husband and I decided to cut our losses, packed what we could in our vehicle and drove an hour and a half north to Columbia, Missouri, where we had heard Veterans like my husband would get better treatment.
Needless to say, in our current situation, Rolla's Jolley Trollee, my transit system, was in serious jeopardy. My husband and I landed at Welcome Home, the area Veteran homeless shelter, which was better than the streets, but still not home. I got responses from the investors, but they turned me down, saying the distance between Columbia and Rolla made it risky for investing in a startup like mine. Columbia already had its own bus system; although I could see improvements or additions that could have been made, I was the new kid in town with no idea where to start or who to talk to. I could barely navigate the streets of Columbia without GPS telling me where to turn. How was I going to plan three bus routes?
So, I waited out six months at Welcome Home with my husband trying to readjust sudden after displacement to a new and bigger city. A month after our arrival, our vehicle decided to exit the left stage, and we became regular customers of the city's transit system. By the end of the summer, we were approved for housing assistance, found a new place, and moved in mid-September. We had met new people, learned what we could about our surroundings with limited access to resources and transportation, and taken advantage of everything the VA and HUD could offer us, which, believe me, was a lot and did not go unnoticed or unappreciated. Once l began settling into a less hectic, more relaxed routine and was able to schedule my next moves again, I quickly began to recall those feelings I once had of planning my business. I wrote a business plan for Jolley Trollee-Columbia; I still had my LLC; I had been telling new acquaintances about my original project; I had l done some research on funding and local government. I was still trying.
What ended my efforts was an investment offer that turned out to be a scam. I had learned through my months of research that sometimes you have to spend money to make money, and when a friend, or so I thought, told me to send $200 to him for an investment deal with an ROI well over $10,000, giving me the opportunity to start planning routes, I decided to try it. Simple math told me it was worth it, and payday was a week away. I knew it was risky, but if you don't ask, the answer is always no. My 'friend' was there before Rolla's Jolley Trollee was ever thought of, so I sent him $200 and waited. He said we'd know something in a week, then started adding more, saing he needed more money invested to finalize his transaction...Then my bank statement came in, and there was a $200 deficit in the household budget. Although my personal income decisions are mine to make, I had not been upfront and had to admit my mistake to my husband.
All of the effort and research and self-teaching and trial-and-error of the past year had come down to deciding between my marriage and a lifelong dream. I chose my marriage, but I wasn't content. Arguments became a regular occurrence, and I started trying to find other things, anything, I could try. On a more relaxed evening, while checking email I opened a freelance trial account offer from PeoplePerHour, so I decided to look into it. As I went through the list of available assignments and skill sets, I checked off box after box and completed my registration; it dawned on me that I had learned A LOT. To waste that knowledge would have been the real tragedy.
Just before hitting submit, the last question they asked me was, ' What should we call you? ' My answer? ' Something4Everyone '.