The Type 3 guy, The Type A girl and never ending typing: Our small business journey

Today, I reflect on how Type 3 Web Design began, a small business journey that started with a type 3 guy (adventurous, risk taking and all-in personality), a type A girl (organized, direct and ambitious) and a dream of one day creating something amazing together. It’s a modern story of love, passion and a computer…or two. It’s also an important story for this business, for our family and for the owners of small businesses, non-profits and churches that we support.

Why tell our small business journey?

But before we get started, maybe you ask why waste my time blogging about our modest beginnings and why you should take time to read about our adventures?

Well, it’s simple – because it is interesting. Because it might remind you of your own small business journey and the nostalgia may inspire you to write about your own.

For some, it could be a reminder to appreciate how much you’ve grown since your own humble beginnings or, it might make you feel like you are not alone in your small business stage of awkwardness (because you are not).

The beginning of each small business journey is just that, the beginning, and hopefully, to an incredibly long and successful journey that you will have regretted not taking the time to keep a log of your adventures.

Why, so they can be found 50 years later to be placed into the Smithsonian like Sam Walton’s baseball cap or a Steve Jobs computer sketch and that are worth more than your startup capital and mine combined. We can dream, can’t we?

But seriously, try to remember when you first dated your spouse, the details of your wedding, the birth of your child, your first major type 3 adventure or any important experience worth reliving .

We enjoyed reading stories about our history when we were in school and we read about them every day in the news. We are a culture of storytelling and a compelling story helps us learn and sometimes inspires us to grow to start our own type 3 experiences. I hope our story inspires you (or at least makes you giggle).

A not-so-fairy-tale story

I guess we should start as all good stories go… Once upon a time….

Ok, so maybe we shouldn’t start there. Our story didn’t start as a fairy tale but maybe like an odd made-for-tv movie. Both my now husband and I grew up in the same county in Arkansas but, we never crossed paths (well, maybe we passed in Walmart but anyway…).

We were into different things – I was in band and choir in public school, he was into computers and rollerblading in private school. We both grew up way too quickly, married the wrong people, and had our children young. As usually happens in those situations, we both ended up single and incredibly busy raising our kids.

When we met, I was working full time and going to school full time while raising my son. He was working long hours as a police officer and taking care of family members.

Both of us being too busy to meet people outside of work, Mr. Type 3 and I  started talking to people online. Yes, that’s right, we met through an email on a dating site.

I really think it is quite fitting that we met online and now work together online.  Magic really can happen with an open mind and a smartly written, targeted profile on www.okcupid.com.

(As a small plug for this website, one of their founders Christian Rudder, is originally from Arkansas so if you use them for your dating services, it’s almost like you are supporting small Arkansas businesses).

So, after talking for a month online, we finally met on the Bentonville, Ark. square and sparks flew. We dated for a month before, as they used to say, we were “going steady” and pretty much inseparable since then.

We both have a lot in common and share some of the same passions of being outdoors, focusing on our kids, and giving back to the community. We also both have experiences as  successful entrepreneurs and come from families with great business savvy.

When we began discussing what our future might look like, it was amazing how our ideas aligned but, we were just not what the journey would look like to get there.

When he successfully proposed on April 1st (he made plans about 10 times before that with a cancellation each time due to illness, kids forgotten activities or other conflicting events), we really started talking about what our lives looked like over the next 50+ years and what was most important to us – our kids, our families, our time, our freedom and taking care of people.

What could we create together that used our talents and took care of all of those things? We came to the conclusion that entering our own small business journey would allow us to take care of these things and if really successful, allow us to give back in a much bigger way through our own Foundation or trust (this is still in our future plans).

A small business plan

We were brainstorming one night about what should this small business journey be and it went a little something like this. Ok, it didn’t really go like that but Mr. Type 3 loved that cartoon so, I had to figure out a way to fit it in 🙂

We really just talked about how important and influential small businesses were to our lives, to our family’s financial peace and how so many of them helped create the people that we are today.

We want to help our families but also use our skills to give back to small businesses that need a little help and a lot of customers.

Michael is very talented with website design and if there is something that he does not know how to code, create or change, he has a strong network of WordPress users that can and will teach him how.

Not only does he love the coding and creating, he also loves the people, which you don’t always get with someone that works in the IT industry.

For him, building the relationship with the customer is important because is allows you to truly understand their needs and created a solutions-based package for them.

I (Felicia) have worked in Corporate Communications and Project Manager type roles for the past 12+ years. I  develop communications for wide distribution and targeting different audiences. I write for online, publications and develop marketing materials for nonprofit programs.

With our talents and love for small business combined, it was easy to figure out how to help small businesses reach the next level by providing them options to enter online marketing and business management.

Type 3 Web Design today

So here we are now, married, with three teenagers and running our own America dream – working to help as many small business owners as we can and teaching ourselves about everything our customers need to know and more.

Thank you for reading our story but it does not stop here. The most important part is yet to come as we take care of you and your online needs, so you can focus on your business, your family and the things that matter most to you.

Thanks for reading our story, now it is time to blog about yours!