Chatting with the Telecommuting Answer Lady

My good friend, Nell Taliercio, aka The Telecommuting Answer Lady, has invited me to join her in a cross blog conversation. Actually she said I was her victim, but that's ok with me!

Nell is a work at home mom too. She was once a VA herself and now runs many successful websites, including JustOnlineJobs.com and Telecommuting Answer Lady.

She's mom to 2 little boys who are just adorable. Nell is one of those people who you like the moment you meet her, even online. I've known Nell for a few years (almost 3 I think) so when she asked me to participate in this CBC and share my answers to this, I happily agreed to be "victimized". ;)

"When did you start your VA business and why did you decide to become a VA?"

I had actually been researching and thinking about starting a virtual assistant business since 2001, when my oldest son was 3 or 4 years old. For various reasons I didn't start it then.

The idea was always in the back of my head and in 2004 I met the man of my dreams and he was thrilled that I wanted to someday be able to work from home. After a previous marriage to a man who thought I should not only fry up the bacon, but bring it home too with very little, sometimes no help from him, it was a blessing to me to finally have someone who understood just how important it was for me to not only own my own business but run it from home so I could be the one to raise my child. You can read more about my #1 reason for wanting to work from home here.

In 2005, while pregnant with my second child I started doing small side jobs as a VA, but didn't officially open my office doors at Take5VA.com full-time until August 2006.

Now, it's my turn to Nell so here's your question. Inquiring minds want to know:

Was your VA business the first work at home business you had and what made you decide to close up shop and move on to owning and running other websites instead?

Looking forward to hearing your answers!

Be sure you follow along on Nell's blog, especially if you're interested in working from home because Nell has a ton of information on the subject in that brain of hers! As a matter of fact, Nell's old forum at Mommy's Place is where I landed my first VA project! I thank God every day that Nell had that forum because I learned more there in the few months before I got that job than I did in all the previous years combined of researching work at home jobs.