Tim Whitfield: Building a Techy: How to put the tech in Techy, Part Four

Part Three

It was early June 2003.  I had been paying for my failed company’s client websites out of my own pocket for a few months.  I started dreaming about a new business that would arise from the ashes of ICTS.  I would maintain control of it and it would at this point serve the customers and clients of ICTS.  Whitfield Enterprises was the name I came up with and I registered the domain name whitfieldenterprises.com on June 28, 2003.

Whitfield Enterprises was a sole proprietorship.  It was organized as an umbrella organization for three business units I planned to create.  The first was the web design company from ICTS, I called it Sunny Day Web Group (more on that name in a minute).  The others were the Consumer Products Division and the Entertainment Division.  Consumer Products began to sell shirts and other apparel associated with the Got Shorthorns? logo that Sherri Gipe and I created for the Shorthorn Junior Nationals in South Dakota in 2004.  The Entertainment division as originally envisioned would further develop the character Billy Buckaroo that was a figment of my imagination.

Sunny Day Web Group was named after a personal project of mine that would prove to be an excellent move in later years.  The ranch website of the Sunny Day Shorthorns was actually first created in September of 2002. It had since become the most successful site in my portfolio.  It had great search engine placement and was actually producing results for the ranch.  I figured what better way to build a brand then use the family ranch name.

 While I didn’t actually buy the SunnyDayWeb.com domain name for a while, I still marketed myself to other ranchers using this name.  My business had extremely low overhead.  I worked where ever I was at, using the resources I had at the time… (Frontpage 2002 and Microsoft Image Composer along with my High School graduation gift (a desktop PC that my parents still use at their house).

From 2003 to 2007, Whitfield Enterprises grew very slowly.  I left the home roost and headed to Fresno to attend Fresno State in 2004.

I had to get a new steady job just about then because I couldn’t continue to work for the school districts in Merced.  The business was making enough money to stay afloat but we weren’t really developing new business, just maintaining what we had.

I got hired as a Student Assistant at the California Department of Justice.  I was able to work part time, go to school and still maintain my business.  The other student assistant, Neng Yang also had a business so we got involved in several joint ventures in Fresno.  Some of those clients are still with Sunny Day Online today.
 
Ultimately, I was hired as a full time Information Systems Technician and then promoted to an Associate Information Systems Analyst.  At this point I had the financial freedom I desired to start moonlighting again.

In the next installment of Building a Techy: How to put the tech in techy: A Mark Twain Street sign and a chance trip to Disneyland sparks a new friendship and a new direction.