Let Me Clarify That Last One…

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“.

A New Start?

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.

An Uncomfortable Dream

Last night I dreamed that M was making out with her ex- in the living room. This was okay because I told her she could see other people (I didn’t) and he was a close friend who always spent time with us (he doesn’t). I was running interference with the kids, keeping them occupied and getting them ready for bed. I woke up feeling…disappointed. I was taking care of the errands and obligations while someone else was doing what I wanted to be doing. According to Ask and It Is Given, dreams are an indication of what you are bringing into your reality, so by that interpretation I am bringing in busy work for myself, and rewards for others. And quite honestly that sounds about right.

(I should mention that in the dream I got to play a very entertaining racing game with the kids, which gave me some ideas for my own project — call it a silver lining)

This follows up a frustrating day at work, where we are muddling through the endless details of a project rollout. I joined the company I am at now because, while they are primarily a consulting shop, they were starting development of a promising off-the-shelf software product. I saw it as an opportunity to get out of consulting and into the more the predictable and lower stress world of commercial software. I would have more ownership over the results, and in the long run I’d be better off personally, professionally, and financially. In the short-term, I am still a consultant, but making (considerably) less money to help fund the initial development. Unfortunately, I don’t like the way that development is being done; the person doing the work — my future boss — is not the right person for the job. Basic things that should be second nature at this level are not getting done, and I am getting frustrated. I don’t want to start throwing stones because I don’t feel like I’ve contributed enough to the effort (for numerous reasons) and I don’t want to come off as an uninformed malcontent. So to make things right, I have to spend some time contributing in order to understand and document the depth of the problem in order to drop a bomb on it. My gut tells me this is the right approach to take, even if I would rather spend that time working on my own code. Though I do wonder if I am simply creating the conditions for me to quit in good conscience.

Okay, that was more than enough bitching. Next post I’ll talk about how I’m making my reality a better place.