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Intro

My name is Will. I'm from Front Royal, Virginia. Ever since I was a small child I was good with computers and took an interest in business. I don't even remember my first computer though my mom says I had a Commodore 64. The first computer I remember is an original Compaq computer which folded up and then I got a 1982 IBM Leading Edge soon after that. So, I've always been good with computers and interested in them. In Elementary School I sold anything I could. I sold 'potions' that I made up to my neighbors, sold for various fundraisers and started the first newspaper and sold that for my Elementary School. In Middle School my mom used to give me bags of candy to sell and with the profit I would buy more candy to sell. In High School I learned to build and sell websites. Since then I've been doing that. I got my first business license at 16 and started building websites. Soon after that I got emancipated from my parents (my mom and dad were okay with this) and I moved to Ashville, North Carolina to start my first real job as a computer programmer.

First Job

My boss at the time was a hot shot marketer/salesman and had a business selling computers. In the end he wasn't a very good businessman and I learned salespeople/marketers don't make the best business owners. Any business owner should first realize their weaknesses and compensate for them by hiring people to keep their faults in check. After that experience I went on to work locally for a few companies as an independent consultant and keep my business going. It was a tough time because I didn't have a lot of experience, I was young and I was scraping by through the skin of my teeth. However, I was smart, resourceful and wise for my age. I stayed in North Carolina for a little over a year overall and soon moved to Mississippi for a job opportunity.

First Mistakes

Let me preface by saying I was a very loyal PERL programmer. I didn't want to program in PHP and shouldn't have ever taken the job in Mississippi. The pay was excellent though so I had a hard time turning it down. I was only in Mississippi for two months. I learned a very important lesson about myself. I will not be able to do what I do not want to do. If I don't have the heart for it and go in with both feet as well as eyes wide open I will not succeed at any position. Moving to Mississippi was not my best moment but it made me understand a lot about myself and overall I wouldn't change that circumstance. Soon after this I contacted some friends in Florida who where investors in the first company I worked for. They wanted me to go to Florida and talk to them.

Days In The Sun

So, I flew to South Florida, a beautiful place. I eventually took a job working for these people in Jupiter, Florida and drove down there with only the things I could fit in my car. I left a lot of things in Mississippi. I like Florida, but I'm not a big fan of hot weather. My boss in Florida treated me to South Beach in Miami for the weekend while I was there. Wow, Miami is an awesome place. Florida just wasn't for me. I was living out of a hotel room and I wanted a place. They wanted me to stay down there but I wanted to do some volunteer work for non-profit spiritual organization in Ashland, Oregon. I got them to agree to let me work remotely from Oregon and give me enough money for the trip and to settle. So, I began my trip to Oregon in a car. It's a 6 day journey by car from South Florida. Though I stopped and hung out with my grandma, who helped raise me, north of Tampa, Florida for a couple days. After that I drove straight through to Oregon and ended up moving to Medford, Oregon.

Oregon Trail

During my time in Oregon I did volunteer for the Recreation Foundation which was founded by Neale Donald Walsch (the writer of the Conversations With God book series). For a while I also did some paid work for them. It was an awesome experience and I felt whole by doing it. But there was a lot of Ego in that organization and underlying problems that made it difficult to continue working there. Also, I was still very young and not very dependable at the time. I was very prone to distractions in my youth and though it seems I was focused from all the places I've been and things I've done I was less focused than you would think. I absolutely loved my time in Medford, Oregon and still feel like maybe one day I'd like to call Oregon home. After a little over a year in Medford I decided to move to Portland, Oregon as I felt the need to be in a bigger city.

Portland is my favorite city hands down. I love the people, the environment, the sights, the vibe, the nature and scenery. It's very me. I guess a combination of being 20 years old and feeling comfortable in this city made me lose track of my values. I became more and more distracted, made foolish decisions in those I associated with, got in to drugs, let my business lapse and eventually let my life fall apart to where I had to move back to Front Royal, Virginia.

Trapped In Home Town Hell

For three long years I worked to find myself in Virginia and define who I was. My home town is an easy place to lose yourself and I did a lot of that before I eventually found my strength and built a stronger definition of who I wanted to be and built myself. I lost most everything except my skills and some clients I was able to keep. I was only supposed to be in Front Royal for 1 year and move back to Oregon but it didn't work out that way. I worked for the US Government at FEMA for over a year doing programming, working for FEMA was my least favorite job ever. I worked at a small development firm in Winchester, VA called Iveka, doing programming after that. Iveka was awesome and I loved my time there. I'm somewhat greatful I got to stay there as long  as I did. I built a stronger relationship with my mother and my father. However, I pretty much tore apart my relationship with my father while I was there at first. My step mother and I never really got along that well until recently and the anger I had for her and she for I really strained my father's relationship with me while I was there among other things. But we built it back up later. Eventually I caught up with the mother of my child, Yendis. We hung out a little here and a little there over the three years I was in Virginia (I have known her much longer than that. I've known her since we were in our mid-teens). Finally after over a year of working at it I convinced her to move with me and be my girlfriend. I basically put out my resume to anyone who would take it and looked for a place to move to.

How The South & I Grew To Be Friends

I had a lot of hits on my resume but ended up moving to Nashville, TN to work for a company called Outdoor Central. They built automated systems and interactive system for the sale of hunting and fishing licenses. I learned a lot here, including Ruby on Rails, which I now use for my business to do web development. I grew a very thick skin because the managment at this company was not very good. The shining beacon of hope at that company was a man named Shawn Garbett, who taught me a ton about being a good engineer and how to put up with bad management. Without him I'm not sure I'd be who I am now. He steadied my focus and attention long enough to guide me. A little after 3 months working here I found out my girlfriend, Yendis, was pregnant with our son. Having a child or the thought of having a child soon will really straighten up your priorities and that is what it did for me. I decided I would continue working for Outdoor Central long enough to gather the skills I would need to build a very strong web development company. That's what I ended up doing. Soon after my son was born I decided to turn in my letter of resignation and build my own company. My son, Juhlyun Bridges, was born on September 11th 2006.

I started a company called Bluepaw Enterprises Inc., which was my first attempt at corporation and really trying to grow a buiness beyond myself. I made a ton of paperwork type mistakes and formality mistakes. I also decided to take on a partner that was a little less than worthy of being a partner in such an endeavor. He didn't have the chops for business and made things only more difficult. I dropped my partner about 10 months in to starting the buisness. I kept at this for about 16 months before I found a partner which I felt was both technically capable and business oriented enough to be long term. Together we decided to blend our client list and start a new brand called 'CogWise Software' which we started last September.

CogWise Software was doing really well and then the global recession kicked in. It hit us very hard because we just started the business a little less than one month before the impact was felt. But, both Jason (my partner) and I are survivors. We learned some new marketing strategies and upsold some of our current clients to survive the hardest part of the recession for us. Now business is doing a lot better and we have built an organization with 10 developers, 3 PMs and 2 support staff within just 5 months.

LocalWrkx & Cogwise Solutions

The most recent chapter of my life was a split from my former partner, Jason. It also included a split from my girlfriend (my son's mother). My former partner and I went our separate ways on Cogwise Software in an amicable split. I branched off and created Cogwise Solutions – keeping the Cogwise brand. Also, I started a second company called LocalWrkx. The Cogwise company would stand for what it always stood for and work with startups to turn awesome ideas in to software. The new LocalWrkx brand at http://localwrkx.com would be about local solutions and smaller websites. That brand was also created to use technology in order to grow industries and businesses that wouldn't normally have access to it. 

As I mentioned, I split with my girlfriend of four years as well. We have a three year old son together so it was a big change. I got to keep custody of my son and he now lives with me in TN. It's been difficult to cope with a big lifestyle change of being my son's only available parent and no longer having a life partner but I'd like to think I'm doing well. I'm staying committed to living in Nashville for the near future as I really love what Nashville has to offer. 

I summaraized or left things out in regard to brevity but that was pretty much a shortened bio of my life. I made mistakes, lived a full life and learned a ton to get where I am at now. Sometimes I fell flat on my face and that was the only way to learn. I don't regret my mistakes because I feel they made me who I am today. A man who is much wiser than I was.