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ClubFixit: Diary of a startup
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August 24, 2000: 9:49 a.m. ET
Part 4: Acceptance. ClubFixit joins San Francisco incubator program
By Staff Writer Hope Hamashige
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Walking the streets of New York City, Sean Mullin often finds himself jotting down names and phone numbers he sees on the sides of plumbing, fencing and contracting trucks parked at the curb.
"You know how many of these I got today just walking to the subway?" he asked. "Seven! I know there's a market for this." This is the market that ClubFixit, Mullin's budding Internet company for blue-collar businesses, is hoping to tap.
Since his recent disappointment with the New York New Media Association's Angel Investor Program, Mullin has changed the company's strategy a bit. Until now, Mullin was trying to raise the seed capital for the business first and getting the technology and clients together later.
Now, he wants to get ClubFixit's Web site designed and running and get a few clients signed up as a way to entice investors to put their money into ClubFixit.
Be careful what you ask for, Sean Mullin, because sometimes that is precisely what you get.
Incubator takes on ClubFixit
The good news came in the form of a simple e-mail message. Congratulations, it said, you are in. Those words elicited an elated "Yes!" from Mullin when he realized exactly what they meant -- ClubFixit had been accepted to an incubator program run by San Francisco-based Conxion.
Conxion already has a relationship with about 50 Internet companies in the San Francisco area. ClubFixit is only the second startup it has agreed to take on in New York City.
"This is great news," Mullin said. "With this, I really think we can get the site up and get going."
Under its arrangement with Conxion, ClubFixit will get free Web hosting for six months. The company also will get technical support 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The arrangement does not, unfortunately, provide the crew with an office (they'll have to keep working out of Mullin's Manhattan studio apartment for now). Unlike other for-profit incubator programs, it does not take an ownership position in the company.
ClubFixit's site will go up in about two weeks.
Incubator creates urgency
Signing on with Conxion helps tackle one major obstacle that Mullin and his  partners still struggle with every day -- money! Free Web hosting and technical support is worth an awful lot of money for a small Internet company with no seed money and just a couple grand in the bank.
Mullin estimates the services Conxion is providing ClubFixit for free are worth around $2,000 a month, a sum that is way beyond the means of ClubFixit at the moment.
The unexpected news also lit a fire under the ClubFixit crew. With only six months of free help, Mullin and the others plan to run like hell for the next half year to get the most of their relationship with Conxion. Indeed, having a home has created a new sense of urgency that didn't exist a few weeks ago.
"We really need to be as aggressive as we can for the next couple of months," Mullin said. "Our goal is to accomplish as much as we can while the services are free."
Fortunately, Mullin recently hired a Web designer who finished preliminary design of the ClubFixit site about a week ago. He is still working with the designer to perfect the site, but it will be finished in time for the launch.
Luckily, Mullin was able to find a designer who is also a young Internet entrepreneur. He agreed to complete the work for a nominal sum to build his own portfolio.
Finding a host for the Web site also means that the gang's technology chief, Phill Legault, can finally get to work -- setting up e-mail boxes for the ClubFixit partners and starting to write the propriety software for the services they will offer their clients.
Now that they have a product to sell, Mullin and the others are going to have to determine exactly what they plan to charge for their technology services. They also have to make some decisions about which services they are going to try to create for their clients in-house and which they plan to partner for.
Also, they realize that they are going to have to roll out services one by one over the next couple of months. Initially, they will probably only set up a presence on the Internet and e-mail. Eventually, though, they will offer many other back-office services and several ancillary services like a job board.
Determining which services are going to come out first and how that will be accomplished probably means part of what Mullin will be doing over the next few months is revising the business plan -- again.
Gotta get some clients
Mullin also is going to finally get the chance to start signing up clients -- something he has been extremely anxious to do all summer. A lot rides on  his success or failure in getting people to sign on with ClubFixit. Mullin, at least, attaches a lot of importance to it because he believes if they get a lot of clients, they will be able to lure in a few investors, too.
"I think if we can prove there is a market and we can go into a meeting and show that we have clients, we will have turned a corner," said Mullin.
Although he and his partners have done some market research and they have several potential leads on clients, they have nothing solid to date. Mullin, as always, is undaunted by the challenges that lie ahead.
"I'm thinking it's time for us to go out there and get us a few clients," he said. 
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ClubFixit
Conxion
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