BeeZee Vision, LLC™ celebrated its 10-year anniversary earlier this year.  It was founded on July 15, 2013, but the concept behind it started in 2005.

This is my story as the founder of BeeZee Vision, LLC™

When it comes to talking about what BeeZee Vision means to me, there are a lot of emotions pulling in all directions.  Most of them are positive of course.  It is even borderline endearing to see my title as Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of my little company.  The only negative would be the fact that in the last 10 years I physically haven’t got enough time to dedicate to the company.  This is about to change because my retirement from Active Duty after 20 years of serving in the U.S. Navy is getting near. Yet BeeZee Vision, LLC™ has also been waiting for me at the end of the pier to return along with my two girls (my wife Alicia and daughter Samantha).

The original concept for BeeZee Vision came when I was stationed onboard USS LAKE ERIE CG-70 when the ship was homeported in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.  I know, right?  Yes, it was indeed a pretty awesome place to be assigned to.  LAKE ERIE was my second ship, the first one, USS SEATTLE AOE-3 decommissioned shortly after we finished her last deployment, so I was only onboard SEATTLE for about one year.

But even by the time I checked onboard USS LAKE ERIE, the U.S. Navy was still a relatively new adventure for me.  Hawaii was definitely a new place.  I had never been to this paradise before, imagine my emotion knowing that this was going to be my home for the next three years!  Pearl Harbor is on the island of Oahu which is better known to tourists for the cities of Honolulu, and Waikiki.  I enjoyed my time in Hawaii, but there was always something missing.  Me… from the past.

What do I mean by that?  Well, I have always had an inclination for the arts in all its forms.  Most importantly I have always preferred to express myself through art.  Suddenly after joining the U.S. Navy, I was very limited to express myself through art.  Also, things were very different as far as what was available back in 2005 when it came to content creation.

In fact, the small laptop computer I had back then would be considered pretty much a “dinosaur” on today’s standards when it came to actually creative software.  It was not a particularly fast or even pretty computer, but at the time it was all I had, and I created a lot of high-end graphic design projects with it.  For instance, I designed and completed the entire Cruise Book and Decommissioning book for USS SEATTLE, both of which are part of the Navy archives.  And yes, I also shot (captured with my old digital camera) a lot of those images featured in the book.

But this old laptop was all I could carry with me.  Afterall, there is not that much room in the ship.  And let me tell you that my old laptop was literally falling apart with all the wear and tear.  For instance, the hinges connecting the keyboard to the screen were so eroded that even opening and closing the computer needed quite the amount of finesse.  It is actually interesting that the computer survived a few falls onto the non-skid.  That is the very rough hard surface on top of the U.S. Navy ship weather decks.  Yeah, that stuff would tear you up.  Yet, the little computer survived that and a lot more abuse.

Every once in a while, I have a chance to do some artistic project in my installed version of Adobe Photoshop.  That is my all-time favorite software.  However, I am a videographer at heart – and back there I no longer had the chance to do professional videography.  That kind of bummed me out, because there was so much beauty around me, but I no longer had any equipment to capture it.  But the days kept on moving, it was always busy… so I would just kind of let life run its course.  And it moved fast!

Then one day as life finally slowed down (for a little while), and I had some time to “remember who I am” – I had this epiphany.  I vowed to myself that one day I was going to be the founder of a company.  And my company would intend to create and showcase art in any form available.  In fact, I wanted to make it a “hub” for many artists to be able to showcase their talent.

Perhaps selfishly, I also wanted to give myself a vehicle to showcase my own art under a banner that was my very own.  This was not an overnight thing; it even took me a while to come up with the name.  I kind of had an idea of what I wanted to do, but the ship’s schedule and the limitation both in software and availability were very hard to surmount.  Yet I had a vision of what I wanted it to be.  The vision still remains, but what I realize now is that I was way too far ahead of my time.  The rest of the world needed to catch up to where I was envisioning.  It was worth the wait.

 

Where does the name “BeeZee” come from?

My nickname in the U.S. Navy is “BeeZee” – and there is a story behind it. Soon after I checked onboard USS LAKE ERIE, my specialty (rating) was known back then as Personnelman Seaman.  In other words, I was a junior Sailor working in the ship’s administrative office.  I really loved being in that Ship, the crew was like a big family.

Because my last name “Baqueroalvarez” is unnecessarily long, people used to give me all kinds of nicknames.  Many of which I did not care about, however endearing the intent, such as B-14 – I’m not a plane.  But all that nickname frenzy changed one faithful day.

There was a big inspection going on involving the ship’s Engineering Department.  I was assigned by my division’s leadership to assist as a “yeoman” (admin person) for this event.  I was directed to go to the Wardroom (where officers congregate) and report to the Commanding Officer (CO), also known as the “Captain” – who at the time also happened to be an actual U.S. Navy Captain (CAPT).  I went to the wardroom in a crisp uniform and did as I was directed by my divisional leadership.

I found the CO, I stood at attention, and with the best military bearing I could muster I said: “Good morning, Captain! PNSN Baqueroalvarez reporting for duty as directed, Sir.”  He smiled very kindly and politely asked me “how do you say your name again?” – I replied “Baqueroalvarez, Sir.”  With the same kind and engaging smile, he then said, “How about BeeZee?”   I replied, “Yes Sir!” – he had done it, he found the one nickname that I actually liked, and almost two decades later it remains my nickname.  Thank you to -at the Time, CAPT Joe Horne!

He subsequently retired as an Admiral.  He has always been one of the leaders in the U.S. Navy that I have admired the most.  I learned a lot from his leadership style, even as a junior Sailor.  In either case he is the person who granted me my U.S. Navy nickname “BeeZee.”

So now you know where the name “BeeZee” came from.  What some people might not know is that in nautical signal flags hoisting, different flags represent certain things.  Some flags are letters, others are numbers, and others represent certain codes.  But when you fly the flags “Bravo Zulu” it also means “well done.”  This Bravo Zulu (BZ) is also passed over radio, or other communications as a term to convey congratulations, or the successful completion of an operation or a mission.  I am sure you can see why I am so grateful to my former CO for giving me that nickname.

So, whenever you see the BeeZee Vision, LLC™ logo, the Bravo and Zulu nautical flags carry the symbolism from that faithful day, and how my nickname BeeZee came to be.  Fast forward almost two decades later, this is the nickname I continue to embrace, and it has become part of my identity.

 

Back to the early BeeZee Vision concept.

Eventually my trusty laptop computer that was with me before I joined the Navy kicked the bucket.  Things went from bad to worse with the machine once the keyboard and the screen were literally separated.  I remember when a Chief Warrant Officer was kind enough to tell me to “stop being so cheap” and get a new computer.  Yeah, back then those laptops were very- very expensive.  Even my little computer that was kicking the bucket and whose battery could not even hold charge, and that was begging me to put her out of her misery – yeah, even that was still pretty expensive.  This was an old Dell laptop computer.  I bought it a few months before I joined the Navy, and it was the best thing I could get at the time. My previous laptops had already become obsolete by that time.

And even though we did create a lot of artistic pieces in that little Dell laptop computer, it was relatively slow, and did not have that much storage space.  But I did have photoshop, which I used extensively.  But was otherwise very limited on what I could or could not do with it.  This is well before the time USB ports came into existence.  But regardless, the Warrant Officer was right, and I knew I had to upgrade sooner than later.

I saw somebody had a very fancy laptop with an extended numerical keyboard.   I knew I had to have it, but boy was it expensive – this was a Hewlett Packard (HP) laptop.  I remember this machine being over $2,000.00 in 2006’s money.  I found a computer store, likely the Navy Exchange in Pearl Harbor, I don’t recall anymore – it might have been in another place.  Does not matter, but I remember it felt super expensive, but worth it.  And it did last me several years after I purchased it – and got quite a lot of mileage on it.  By the way, that laptop also went kaput eventually – I think about 10 years of hard use or so.  But a lot of good stuff was created with her as well.

But that is the very computer I used to type and design the original BeeZee Vision logo.  It looked very different back then than what it does now.  But it was a start.  At the time it had a bit more of a corporate look, and to be honest I only had very little time to even think about the concept, it was something omnipresent, but sort of simultaneously in the background.  So weird!  Unsurprisingly, my duties and responsibilities were very hectic even back then.

Yet the concept always returned to the fact that I wanted to “create” art! The concept of “content creators” in the same way we know it today was not a thing back then.  Technology was way behind, what we see today as content creation would have been a fantasy back then.  This period pre-dates Facebook, and even the capabilities for digital photography were still a far cry from what we take for granted today.  We were even very far from smart phones.  And phones who happened to have a camera were only capable of taking photos with very, very low resolution.

In either case, digital photography and graphic design were the first things that I produced under the BeeZee Vision concept.  Even though none of those were for commercial use at the time.  I really created and captured images for fun, for favors, for work (contributed to the U.S. Navy), and because I could.  But there was no signal for those products at the time, especially not in Hawaii – in the environment where I was living.  Although people did like my graphic design prowess.

I remember when our deployment onboard LAKE ERIE started, our first port was in Yokosuka, Japan.  I purchased the fanciest digital camera I could afford.  This was a Fuji camera.  I took a bunch of photographs.  At some point I’ll post those online.  And of course, I continued creating graphic design projects with my trusty version of Adobe Photoshop.  A version so old by today standards that it would look “cute” – but it was phenomenal back then.  By the way, Photoshop remains my favorite software because it allows me to bring to life what is in my imagination.

Fast forward to 2007, I was assigned for duty in Naples, Italy.  Yeah! I lived just shy of four awesome years in Italy.  Loved it, I came back kicking and screaming, Italy was wonderful, and having U.S. military presence, it was like living the American Dream but in Italian.  And also, during that time BeeZee Vision, although still a concept in my head, remained what it was while I was in Hawaii.

Essentially, I would take a lot of photographs and I would do graphic design under the same premise as before.  Still, since BeeZee Vision was not a company I was not doing this as a business, but rather just for fun and because I could.  Yes, still.  But I was not worried about it.  Afterall, being stationed in Naples did afford me the opportunity to travel all over Europe; and Alicia also moved in with me, and eventually we got married and she got pregnant with our daughter Samantha a few months before we departed Italy.  We lived together in Italy for three years.

Samantha was born in 2011 in Virginia soon after we returned from living in Italy, and as expected life was still incredibly busy.  You know, come to think about it, for the last 20-some years my catch phrase might as well have been “I’m busy” – because I was.  In fact, some of my co-workers used to use the pseudo-pun “BeeZee are you busy?”  I know, right?  But it was true, it was insanely busy the entire time.  During this entire time, I was living a wonderful chapter in my life.  I was a new dad, I had just changed my specialty from administration to intelligence, and everything once again was very new for me.  There was no time for art, BeeZee Vision had to take the back seat as life happened.

When I returned to Virginia it was the same as Hawaii and Italy.  Whenever I had a chance, I would take a bunch of photos, and I would do something pertaining to graphic design.  But mostly it was really for fun, and often either as a favor, or because “I could.”  So, I did.  You can see a pattern huh? Yet at some point I would come full circle and crave to create art and do more with BeeZee Vision.  Unsurprisingly, there was just not enough time.  I was always extremely busy, even back then.  Dang, this military service is indeed very time-hungry, and any down time I could afford I would dedicate it to my wife and daughter.  And my time with them was ever so limited.

And even at this time, years after – content creation in the way we are accustomed to seeing it nowadays was still several years away from being the reality we see today.  I knew what I wanted to do, I just literally did not have the time (yes, I know I am saying this over and over again.  Sadly, because it is true).

 

Founding BeeZee Vision, LLC™

As 2012 was rolling around, BeeZee Vision being relegated to the back seat was making me feel uneasy.  I wanted to turn this concept into an actual company.  The only problem, the process seemed unsurmountable, especially as my duties with the Navy were still pretty hectic – as usual.  I did put my duties as a priority because that is our commitment as military members.  But I figured that I wanted to have something that was my own growing progressively for the sake of my daughter, and even if it would take a long time, at the very least this company would have enough time to grow at its own pace.  Even if the growth was supposed to be lethargic.

Was I apprehensive about it?  You bet!  There were so many unknowns, and now being a permanent resident in Virginia, I had a lot of other hurdles that I needed to figure out just to start a company, let alone have the capital to get it off the ground.  For some time, I was also putting it out because I did not know if I was going to stay in Virginia, and then moving a company across state lines seemed a lot more complex than what I could handle.

And more importantly, what was the product or service that was going to be central to the company?  Another primary consideration, who is going to be driving this effort?  Yeah, one thing is founding a company, quite another is actually running it.

I knew from the beginning that BeeZee Vision needed to have the capability to adapt with the times.  And I realized that a lot of changes were going to occur, and soon enough the industries as we knew them were going to change.  I just did not know for sure in what scope or scale this change would occur.  But I knew enough as to not to put all eggs in one basket, and rather create a concept that would be adaptable.  And everything we do would be revolving about artistic creation.  Now that begs another question.  What type of art disciplines are we going to enact under this BeeZee Vision banner?

But no matter what products or disciplines I would think about, consider, or discard; this is where I keep returning to: “I am BeeZee,” and this is my vision.  Hence BeeZee Vision.  So, what is it?  Really “it is whatever I can visualize it to be.”  The vision is to bring a creative concept to completion with an artistic flare.

Art is manifested in many forms, for example: Photography, graphic design, painting, illustration, videography, visual arts, music, writing, web development, acting, etc.  In other words, any form of artistic expression.  This was the center of BeeZee Vision, the same vision I craved for the creation of art – since back in 2005 while I was a young Sailor in Pearl Harbor!  Fast forward to this day, I was a Petty Officer Second-Class with a wife and a daughter and a gigantic vision trapped in my head that seemed to be too large to handle.

And quite frankly, it was a lot more than what I bargained for.  I knew I had to scale down, and that is a lot easier said than done.  It is easy to get excited and all of the sudden this concept becomes a multidimensional monster, and that in itself can be overwhelming.

Around that point in time, my mother moved in with us to Virginia.  My mother was living in Ecuador after my grandmother passed away in December 2004.  Once I returned to the United States from Italy, my wife and I found a large house that had an “attached apartment” where my mother would live.  And that was a good time, especially because she got to enjoy some time with her granddaughter, my daughter Sammy.  Around the same time, my brother David also moved to Virginia with us and stayed in the same city we lived in with my mother.  This was a win-win because it was a new chapter for us all.

Several years before, along with my mother and my siblings we had a small video production and multimedia company in Fort Lauderdale, FL.  I left that company in 2003 when I joined the Navy.  Eventually my brother founded his own company and focused on web development.  He was able to sustain the family with his small company.

The possibilities to actually start BeeZee Vision as a company started to seem more viable once my brother David came to Virginia.  I knew from the start that I was not going to be able to afford the time to run the company, but my brother would.  I did a lot more research about starting a company, and to be honest there were signals pretty much all over the place, such as TV ads.  These weird signals even included other Sailors who also owned some type of business.

Even though I had a lot more enthusiasm to start up this company, life got in the way and these talks just kept moving any potential for action to the right.  In other words, “yea we’ll think or talk more about it later.”  And later turned from days into weeks, from weeks into months.  And to be honest, I was – no surprise – very busy during that time.

The tide changed after I went to a very long school in Arizona.  And this desire to create the company kept growing and growing.  Finally, I had a talk with my brother when I returned.  My mother wanted to be part of this company, but quite frankly my brother and I did not feel that was a good idea.  Afterall, we did work together earlier in our lives, and we did not get along in a professional manner.  Which among other things ended up with me making a seemingly sudden decision to join the Navy just to get away from everything and everyone.

The working relationship with my brother was a lot better, though we did have some creative differences back then.  But otherwise, we saw eye-to-eye on the actual projects.  Fast forward to this other point in time and both of us, being a lot older, had a lot more professional respect for each other.  I remember having this conversation with my mother and my brother in the big room “office” that was in my house back in Virginia.  The decision to establish BeeZee Vision was agreed between my brother and I, even though I was the founder and in charge of running the paperwork.

Made sense also, because my brother and I share the same last name.   But from that conversation it did take some time for the company to finally be founded.  There are simply a lot of steps.

The majority of 2003 before July was quite a busy time for me as far as researching and preparing the process before even starting the paperwork.  Yes, that means figuring out how to make all the payments, licensing, zoning, etc.  In other words, we had to do a lot of work just to even get started.  Also, there were some expected delays because of zoning restrictions in the city of Chesapeake, Virginia – where we live – there were a lot of hurdles we needed to sort out.  Eventually we did, but it was not an overnight process.

But even before the first piece of paperwork was filed, I had to draft policies, doctrines, regulations, create paperwork, trackers, vouchers, etc.  You know, a lot of documents would be needed once the company was to be operational.  In other words, these things needed to exist before the company was actually created.  Otherwise, you create a company, and you have nothing to run it with.  That was going to be my responsibility as the CEO.  And by running that means capital and a lot of documentation.  That is true for both internal and external documentation in order to legally operate, and to prevent us from getting beat up with a legal faux pas if we missed a step.  So, a lot of planning – and yes, it is expensive to even get to that point!

I figured that I wanted BeeZee Vision to be able to take a life of its own.  So, it had to be an “artificial U.S. person.” In other words, a corporation.  The choices had benefits and drawbacks.  The most common was the C-type or the S-type corporations.  Neither of them really fit too much with what I was able to sustain – especially because of the scarce time available in those years, so I decided to use the Limited Liability Company (LLC) option.  This gave me more flexibility, and if worse came to worse and BeeZee Vision, LLC would go the way of the dodo, at least this would not destroy our family’s financial lives.

I was well aware that most start-up companies do not survive the past six months, and that they normally take several years to grow.  I was ok with that paradigm, because I knew for a fact this “busy life” of mine was not going to get any “less busy” – quite the contrary.  I was right.  My life has actually got exponentially busier ever since.  However, it is worth mentioning that BeeZee Vision, LLC™ has actually survived well past that crucial six-month mark, and it is still here after so many years.  And although admittedly it has been a rollercoaster (as most businesses can attest, I am sure), I am convinced that the best is yet to come.  And we have evolved quite a lot since the first draft was set forth.

From all the options available to actually incorporate this little company, I decided to use Legal Zoom.  After doing a lot of research, they were the best option around, and they were very helpful.  Sure enough, I got a handsome-looking company binder in the mail with a BeeZee Vision, LLC stamp and a bunch of other documents.  Among those were our articles of incorporation for the state of Virginia and a bunch of other documents required for business, and a few other “nice to have” documents.  I’m not going to go through all that, because I can speak non-stop for days about all the stuff that you need to get ready.  And yes, after we’ve got all this stuff, we were nowhere near close to actually opening for business.

For example, other things required after this step include but are not limited to opening bank accounts, getting the licensing, getting the equipment we are going to use, buy a bunch of office supplies, create the stationary, business cards, all that and more.  Again, none of that could have been possible until the company was actually incorporated and active.  For example, what good would a company business card do me if there was not an actual company behind it?  Fortunately, I anticipated all that craziness, so most of those steps were started and “on hold” before pulling the trigger and pay Legal Zoom for helping us incorporate BeeZee Vision, LLC™ as an actual company.  We’ve been working with Legal Zoom ever since.  And no, I am not sponsored by Legal Zoom (yet… you listening? Hint-hint Legal Zoom).

Very soon after I’ve got bombarded with a bunch of entities that wanted to provide capital, and business loans and all that jazz.  I politely declined all of them.  Counterintuitive to many, I just did not want to incur debt.  Thus far I have followed this rubric.   BeeZee Vision, LLC™ has zero debt, and even when I used company credit cards, I would pay the full balance outright as soon as the transaction was done.  American Express was not very happy with that… we used to have a credit card with them, but I paid a total of ZERO interest to that card, so they (sort of) politely disenrolled me after sending a notification.  I think they took the rewards with them too.  Oh well.

I approached BeeZee Vision, LLC™ finances much the same way I approach mine.  Live within my means, and not go spending happy for the sake of buying stuff.  Whatever we purchased was something of good quality and it has been holding up for years, go figure!  Most purchases thereafter were consumables, and since BZVweb has been doing all the heavy lifting in automatic mode in the last few years, there has been no need to do any additional upgrades.  That is liberating.  When you treat things nicely, they tend to last for a long time.

 

BeeZee Vision, LLC™ logo – lots of symbolism!

Sometime before the articles of incorporation, my brother David and I created the BeeZee Vision, LLC™ logo you see today.

For some time, I had this vision to tie the logo back to the nautical roots embedded in my nickname “BeeZee”- and design the logo based on the Bravo and Zulu signal flag hoist designs.  It worked perfectly, because the Bravo flag which is a red flag with an indentation looks a lot like a “B” and the Zulu flag allowed us to trace a “Z” based on its design.

We had a bit of a back and forth seeing other design options.  But the flag-hoist theme seemed like the best option.  Dave was “driving” in the designer’s chair with the software, bringing to life the design I drafted on the white board.  There is a lot of symbolism that is attached to the BeeZee Vision, LLC™ logo.

• Bravo flag: The red Bravo signal flag by itself represents transferring of fuel or ammunition, oh and it is also flown when a firing range is active.  For example, when practicing shooting with small arms.  In other words, there is a combustible action – a catalyst for expansion if you will. The fuel to turn a spark into a fire.  I can go on…

• Zulu flag: The Yellow, blue, red, and black Zulu signal flag by itself means “I require a tug” – a tug boat being a very strong and maneuverable vehicle capable of moving gigantic ships with relative ease.  However, it requires a very skilled mariner to ensure the safe execution of that maritime evolution.  This represents the artistic craftsmanship of the BeeZee Vision, LLC™ team. Also, in the Zulu flag we also see the colors of the Republican of Ecuador (yellow, blue, and red).  Putting it together is a way paying homage to the founders’ country of birth – Ecuador.

• Bravo Zulu – both flags together: Means “well done” and often used as a congratulatory or celebratory terminology in nautical terms (and extended to other military services).  And of course, that is the spelling of my nickname BZ (BeeZee).  As an extension, since my brother was also involved in the creating of BeeZee Vision, LLC™ as a company, he also shares the same last name as mine.

• Black background box: This is a call back to the roots of video projection in a 16×9 aspect ratio.  It is in what was known as “video black” in old school video production.  This box represents the stage for where the visions come to life on a screen.  Every video screen is black until you turn it on and the images appear.  Also, black is my favorite color because it is classy and elegant.  Further, black attracts heat and energy.

• White “B” “Z” white outline: The Bravo flag is outlined in white with a subtle bevel and drop shadow. Aside from being shaped as an angular letter “B” the cut on the flag creates an angularly sharp “C” shape.  In this logo it also represents how concepts take time to refine and extend far beyond the original level of inspiration (for example taking a stick figure into an actual tridimensional character).  The Zulu flag is traced through the middle accenting the letter “Z” with more prominent bevel and shadow than the “B.”  The letter Z extends, and it is connected but superimposed over the “B” corners signifying the commissioning of a project towards completion (hence the “need a tug from the Zulu Flag” mentioned above).  The Z continues to the edges over the black box denoting that every piece of art can be timeless, and every detail matters.  Further, we never know how far and wide something created by BeeZee Vision will travel.

• Black Diamond in the middle and the yellow triangle on top merging with the “Z” across the Zulu flag: The black diamond shape in the middle is a “camera shutter and aperture” – this is where all the possibilities for an artistic expression exist. It is black, because black traps heat and energy.  On top of the diamond there is a yellow triangle.  That represents the light shed on top of the camera bringing a concept that was not yet conceived into the light (reality).  The yellow triangle is inverted because it shows the expansion of an idea towards the completion of a project.  This yellow triangle sips under the top portion of the Z, as the Z travels through the process, it is shared and reciprocated with their artistic creation and its authors.  That is why the black box and the white triangle meet with no separation from each other, but rather it connects with the other colors. Yellow, Blue, and Red are the primary colors for Art.  Not to be confused with the primary light colors Red Green and Blue.

• Red, White, Blue, and yellow colors: These are the common colors from flags and geographical locations associated with BeeZee Vision.S.A. flag: Red, White, and BlueState of Hawaii flag: Red, White, and blueState of Virginia flag: BlueCity of Chesapeake flag: RedS. Navy flag: BlueRepublic of Ecuador flag: Yellow, Blue, and RedCity of San Francisco de Quito flag: Red and Blue

• BeeZee Vision, LLC™ typography: BeeZee Vision is spelled out with a larger and more accentuated BZV.  Depending on the background the typography will be in white or black lettering. The LLC™ is smaller because it prevents from detracting from the company’s name. The focus is always returning to “BeeZee’s vision.”  And my vision is to facilitate art manifestations.

As you can see the logo was not done on a whim, but rather there is a lot of symbolism associated with what it represents.  As with everything that BeeZee Vision, LLC™ is meant to represent, is to bring a concept to completion with an artistic touch.  In other words, the BeeZee Vision concept boils down to promoting art through technology.

 

The expansion of BeeZee Vision, LLC™ – Ecuador

Finally, after the company was founded in Chesapeake, Virginia – USA, it did take a little while to start working on actual projects.  Putting projects together and getting our own portfolio did take a lot longer than I would like to admit.  We did all we could with what was available at the time.  But then again, from the start I knew I had a very limited time to dedicate to this company while still serving on Active Duty (Military).

Understanding these limitations, originally, we provided two main services.  Customized web development and customized computer terminals.  The multimedia lab was upstairs while the computer lab was downstairs.  My brother David was the main force driving those efforts as agreed, this gave me the opportunity to take care of the administrative burden.  Which is pretty exhaustive and a lot more complex than I wished.

Subsequently, BeeZee Vision, LLC™ became my brother’s main source of income, but of course just being just the two of us, it limited throughput.  Meaning that there is just so much a person can do on their own.  I was not as worried about that because I did have a full-time job serving in the U.S. Navy.  So long as it was able to sustain my brother’s efforts, we agreed that we can scale it to a point that was sustainable.  My goal with BeeZee Vision, LLC™ was for it to grow to the point it would be viable by the time I was ready to retire.  I was still a decade away from that time.

Also, even back then I had a feeling that sustainability was going to be the most important factor to resolve early on.  I figured that going into debt for operations, or hiring full-time personnel was not the best option.  A company needs time to grow, and any step I took was calculating the fact that I did not want to have any debt.  Everything bought for BeeZee Vision, LLC™ was paid outright as I mentioned before.  I don’t intend to change that course of action.  I’d rather have a scaled version that is sustainable than to run something unsustainable and lose all the time and effort invested in the company.

I remember having to buy little by little a lot of pieces of furniture and equipment as the zoning and licensing process was taking place… well before we even got a license in order to start actual operations.  That licensing process also took a very-very long time.  And of course, we were not going to jump the gun until we were fully legal to operate. Once we finished all these documentation requirements, then suddenly everything else moved very fast.  But by that time everything else was ready.  Go figure!

However, there were some dark times looming ahead.

Circa that time my mother had to return to Ecuador because our elderly great-aunt had an accident.  When my mother left for the airport, it was the last time I saw my mother alive.  My mother was diagnosed with incurable medical conditions and that also prevented her from traveling back on a plane.  Because of my duties in uniform, I was not allowed to return to Ecuador.  For about three years I knew my mother was deteriorating and that her demise was inevitable.  My brother David returned to Ecuador to be with my mother during that time.

My mother needed 24/7 nurses.  In the USA it would have been insurmountably expensive, and she would not have been able to get the same level of care as she would have back at her own house.  Either way, it was no longer possible for her to get on a plane.  The decision, almost hastily was to create a BeeZee Vision, LLC™ independent franchise in Ecuador, which was later known as BeeZee Vision – Ecuador.  Let me emphasize that the entire reason to create this franchise was because my mother was terminally ill.  And this gave my brother the best option to take care of her, while having an office in the same house without having to start back from zero

This independent franchise became my brother’s company.  I voluntarily emphasized I had really no say on how it operated, unless it negatively interfered with BeeZee Vision, LLC™ in USA.   But I wanted to legally separate [for legal reasons] both companies.  BeeZee Vision – Ecuador had their own financial instruments and accounts, and all other things required under Ecuadorian law.

Although I never actually was able to visit BeeZee Vision – Ecuador myself, my brother set up all the equipment and everything he needed in order to start operations.  But he was going to need help to run that business.  The other factor is that BeeZee Vision, LLC™ Ecuador, although it shares a name with BeeZee Vision, LLC™ – USA, they were each independent companies.  That was also important because legally I was not able to get any revenue from Ecuador because of my uniformed duties.  All this was essentially under my brother’s purview, and this then became his primary source of income.  Legally BeeZee Vision, LLC™ – USA was not to interfere with BeeZee Vision, LLC™ – Ecuador business.  Nor was I going to get any pay from this franchise.  The intent was primarily to provide a sustainable income to benefit my mother’s many medical expenses and afford my brother proximity with her.

We hired an old friend who had recently gotten a master’s degree in marketing to work in BeeZee Vision – Ecuador.  Being marketing her area of expertise then the decision was made to add “Digital Marketing” to the roster of services in BeeZee Vision – Ecuador.  The other services mirrored what was available in the USA, which before that included Web Design and Development.  Markets and clientele, as well as business culture was very different in Ecuador than what it was in USA.  Unfortunately, during those years, the entire economy around the world tanked.  Ecuador being a small economy suffered substantially.

This global economic downturn paired with creative differences between the team in Ecuador were an omen for what was next to come.  Shortly after my mother passed away in late 2014, the friend who was working with my brother got married and moved to Europe.  The markets in Ecuador where still developing, one of the biggest problems is that some customers were taking a very long time to paid for services rendered.  But somehow that was “ok” under Ecuadorian law and colloquially accepted at the time.   The decision was made to close BeeZee Vision – Ecuador and transfer any contracts (if the customer so desired to BeeZee Vision, LLC™ – USA).  That transferring process is quite complex, because the laws are different between Ecuador and USA.  However, it worked with minimal disruption to the customer because both countries have the U.S. Dollar as the currency.  In either case transferring was addressed very carefully in order to ensure that everything was legal and good to go on both ends.

 

The evolution of BZVweb as part of BeeZee Vision, LLC™

BeeZee Vision, LLC™ had some movement, and we quickly maximized our thruput capabilities.  But we were not ready to hire any additional personnel.  Especially no full-time staff hiring.  The economy in the USA was still pretty terrible during those years, therefore we figured the best solution was to give people options with automated services.  Both my brother and I, as the only two people in the company, had a lot of flexibility as far as what we could or could not accept – as far as projects are concerned.

We already had a web-services-marketplace engine on the side, but we knew we had to automate it at a greater scale.  The solution was the creation of BZVweb, which was to be hosted under its own website www.BZVweb.com – and for years, this has been the main engine behind BeeZee Vision, LLC™ – and will continue to be active.  Automated services allow our customers to buy domains, hosting, security certificates, do-it-yourself-web sites, etc. This helped manage the throughput because some of the older contracts had a very arduous demand signal, which meant that it also took a lot of time to complete certain projects.

Before that period while BeeZee Vision – Ecuador was still active, there was an attempt to automate a lot of those services; however, the business culture at the time (on those years) was very different to what it is now.  And as we were bringing some trailblazing solutions, some people were just not ready for it.  In other words, we were perhaps ahead of our time, but we had no choice.  As I emphasize,  BeeZee Vision – Ecuador was established because my mother’s terminal illness.

As predicted, my time became more and more scarce.  And once again BeeZee Vision, LLC™ proper was now in the back burner.  Uniformed duty is arduous, and some of the things that I wanted to bring forth for the company were getting harder to accomplish – there was simply not enough time.  These things, among other factors, forced the decision to keep it scaled.  This included some contracts that had to be declined because I simply did not know how much time I was going to have available to work on that.  My brother was already managing other projects, and those were taking a lot of time.  Hence, I was forced to give those contract opportunities to somebody else, rather than risk not being able to complete the projects.  It was a tough decision, but it was the right choice to make.

I am glad we made that choice, because BeeZee Vision, LLC™ is mainly in automatic mode, just kicking alive thanks to our automated services.  From time to time, we congregate with my brother Dave to draft some new innovative ideas.  And sadly, I have to admit, some of those had to be put on the back burner because life happens.  But it takes resiliency to not give up.

One thing that I always say, I know exactly what I need to do, and how to do it… I sometimes just don’t have enough time.  To that point the last seven years have been insanely busy.  And to be honest, I had to make my peace with the fact that BeeZee Vision, LLC™ for the time being would only be a part-time venture for my brother David and me.

My brother David accepted a job in Apple, and we’ve agreed that the best course of action was to ensure BeeZee Vision, LLC™ was doing its thing in automatic mode, which seems to be sustainable… that’s good.  And the plan was to continue that until I was ready to retire.

Well, that time for retirement has arrived, and here I am.  I am writing an article that helps me reminisce on this long journey.  It is as though BeeZee Vision has been waiting for me to finally be “free.”

 

BeeZee Vision, LLC™ is coming back!

As my retirement nears, I am very excited about reviving my little company.  As I said BeeZee Vision, LLC™ has been doing its own thing in automatic mode, mostly under BZVweb.  By quelching any egos, and planning ahead, BeeZee Vision, LLC™ has survived 10 years without going under, and remain with zero debt!  But we were not ready to scale it up because I simply did not have enough time to manage all those many moving parts.  That is finally about to change, I will finally have what I haven’t got – free time!  And I must admit it is a great feeling to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Just yesterday I was getting my last professional evaluation by my Commanding Officer (it went very well by the way), and we agreed that the next few months are intended for me to have a safe transition into retirement, and finishing this chapter with the U.S. Navy.  On Sunday, October 15, 2023 I celebrated my 20th year anniversary in the U.S. Navy – that’s a whole long story on its own right.  I will be retiring on April 30, 2024.  But I will also be in a myriad of meetings and medical appointments and a bunch of other things.  My commitment was to ensure the ship was back in home port safe and sound, and leave my areas of expertise certified onboard the ship.  I have met those requirements; my areas are fully certified.

As I have been working on this transition, I have a lot of projects with BeeZee Vision, LLC™ and HALF Life Crisis™ that are just itching to come out.  I have learned through all these years that temperance and patience is a virtue, and if I have waited this long, then I can wait a bit longer to ensure that what I am putting set forth is viable.  Afterall, finally I am having some time to work on this situation.  In fact, this article alone helps me remember the road we’ve traveled.  Although (spoiler alert) the full story is a lot more complex than what I have described in this [already super long] article.

Yeah, there is a lot more to the story, even though it seems some parts I just glossed over – well, I admit, that was on purpose.  I can write for hours about those… and I intent to – eventually.  Actually, BeeZee Vision, LLC™ will have its own blog in the site and we will share our story it in our many social media sites.  As an artist I want to create that rapport.  I don’t want to be the typical faceless corporation.  BeeZee Vision, LLC™ is part of me, and by the way is the engine that host this very website (www.halflifecrisis.com).

So, yeah… I am excited about what the future will bring.  One of the seminars I had to take as I transition out of the U.S. Navy was about entrepreneurship, and this helped me get all the latest information and greatest skills & resources to be ready for the next chapter.  And I would be very naïve to think that I have everything already figured out.  That would be delusional, there is always room for improvement and something new to learn.  I embrace change, and that is something that I do not take for granted.  With that said, my intuition has been spot-on, and I am glad I was never forced to close BeeZee Vision, LLC™ – and now this company is waiting for me as I leave the service.

Also, as I mentioned before, and it is worth repeating, Half Life Crisis™ and BeeZee Vision, LLC™ are intertwined, obviously because both projects are part of me.  And while Half Life Crisis is my own vehicle to write and express what is tumbling on my mind, BeeZee Vision, LLC™ is the vehicle that makes Half Life Crisis possible.

Every now and then, I will also announce on this site news about BeeZee Vision, LLC™ and look forward to seeing you visiting our site there too!  Some of the articles we have on this site will also be shared in the B BeeZee Vision, LLC™ Blog (such as this one).  Thank you for taking the time to hear my story.  I am sure my brother might decide to write about his perspective on the BeeZee Vision, LLC™ story, I am not a fan about putting words on another person’s mouth.  Besides, I am sure he will be able to tell you his story a lot better than I ever could.  HLC