starting from scratch

My last post wasn’t terribly clear; reading it now even I’m not sure what I was trying to say. Can I try again? The problem with my old effort to start a business is that I was trying to develop what Joel Splosky calls a “binary product”. Had I continued the path I was on it would have taken me years to get to the point where I could start getting objective feedback. In the meantime I was seriously burning out. I had already spent a couple of years just proving the concept, and now I was looking at a long road of product development and I just didn’t have it in me. I was ready to bag the whole thing.

And yet, every “find your purpose” exercise I do leads me back to this same effort. Every intellectual analysis of my options brings back to here, even when I am burnt out and sick of it. The I Ching assures me great success; it even goes so far as to interject this message into otherwise unrelated career questions. Erin Pavlina did a reading for me over the summer where she assured me that I was on the right path, but my real goal would not become clear until later on. So maybe this is a step in that direction.

Anyway, I decided to shift gears and develop a blog. I am going to develop the software, but from scratch, and along a different path. I want to develop something great, but the writing on the blog will offset the inevitable weaknesses in the early code. That is, the blog allows me to produce value now, while I spend the time developing the product. I have a lot of insights that I can share, that I have wanted to share, but didn’t because I was concerned about the immaturity of what I was working on. Foolish, in hindsight. What a relief to have finally made that breakthrough. I still have years of work ahead of me, but at least there something that I can focus on right now.

So here I am, starting from scratch. Again.

And by the way, I am intentionally not mentioning the names or websites of my projects. I’d like to keep this a place where I can talk about personal or wacky, far out stuff without worrying about scaring away potential customers or partners. Maybe someday later on, with success running rampant through my life, I’ll “cross the streams“.

I have long wanted to start my own business, and for several years now — years! — I have been trying to do just that. And yet after all that effort I have yet to produce a single damn thing. I’ve tried to face the facts before, to make adjustments and right the ship, but it was all just window dressing. My vision of my product has not changed substantially from day one, nor have my results. Truth be told, the thing is just too big.

My frustration with my day job continues to grow and it finally became overwhelming. I reached my breaking point this past week, with the futility of everything I had been doing really hitting home. I could have been lost in a deep depression but remember this is my year of appreciation and joy! Hmm, yeah…that sounds trite in the face of things but actually it did help keep it all in perspective.

I took a day and allowed my strong emotions to scour the slate clean. I reconsidered my ability to run my own business, and thought hard about possible employment opportunities I might take instead. No, I really do want my own business; it is important to me. I listened to Kickstart Your Own Business and read Cubicle Nation for a few hours and then brainstormed business ideas, from a clean slate. My skillset and my interests bring me back to essentially the same thing I have been working on — after all, how could I have worked on it for so long with no results unless it was something I was really passionate about?

Still, I can’t keep on the same path, something has to give. I am brutally hacking it down, cutting features, trying to get to the essential core of the thing. My intention is to deliver something my 04-July-2007 (Independence Day here in the States); the symbolism can only help. In the process, I have sort of turned the whole thing on its head. What if, instead of developing a product to sell, I sell me developing a product? That is, something along the lines of Werner Moise and Smart Software. The advantage of this approach is that I can put myself out there immediately, start building an audience immediately, instead of waiting years and years to develop this complex piece of software. I can be more comfortable sharing my work in its early states because I am selling the process more than the product.

I still have my doubts; I’m not going to take any action until I’ve had more time to think it through. Still, a ray of sun in a storm.

Steve Pavlina suggests setting a “primary focus” for the year, rather than a more specific resolution. I have had some success with resolutions, here and there, but my best results have come when I kept my goals general. Which is basically what Steve is suggesting.

I believe that my weakest area is best summed up as “spirituality”, in the sense of having a connection to the things and events around me. In particular, I need to work on appreciating and enjoying where I am and what I am doing, rather than just doing because it needs to be done. So that’s my focus for 2007: to appreciate and find joy in things.

I am also starting a new 30 day trial: to spend 15 minutes, three times a day on my own personal development. I plan to use this time for actively visualizing my goals. I want to identify beliefs or fears that are holding me back, particularly in the creation of my own business. I will also use the time to read articles and books, review my goals and my progress, and to optimize my efforts. And sometimes I might just sit and empty my head to be One With The Universe for 15 minutes. I expect it all to be time well spent.

What are your plans for 2007?