After several months of doing the simultaneous graduate school / setting up a company thing, I’ve finally finished my first month of complete independence an an entrepreneur / IT consultant. This post is a progress reports of sort.
First of all, my overall morale is quite strong and I don’t have any regrets about the path that I’ve chosen. Until very recently, I had to deal with the conundrum of knowing the kind of life that I want to lead was not achievable with my (then) life trajectories. For probably the first time in my life, I can now see that it’s possible to achieve the kind of life that I want from the position that I currently occupy. The path is not without its bends, forks, and danger lurking in the bushes, but I do know that there is a way from here to my ultimate destination.
After speaking with a variety of friends about my recent life choices, I’ve essentially distilled my core motivation for doing all of this as trying to optimize the number of options available to me in the future. Some of the options that I regularly think about:
1. The option to practice my craft as an craftsman instead of a paint-by-numbers worker. By this, I mean the freedom to spend time, energy, and resources to work on projects that interest and inspire me without the need to justify them to anyone else.
Some current examples of such projects: my context-sensing research, home automation software, collaborating with music teachers. Some examples of potential projects: better software to manage and interface with e-book readers, games for the iPhone, implementing some of my software on new & novel platforms (Android, Pre, OLPC, etc.).
2. The option to live in a place that I enjoy. On a macro level, this means continuing to live in Chicago. On a personal level, this means that if I find a place where I would like to live, my choice isn’t primarily limited by how much I can afford, how far it is from my workplace, etc.
3. The option to provide the best for my family. When I think of this, I think of the headaches that parents in Chicago face when trying to get their kids into good schools. I’d like to be in a position when that situation arises, I can avoid being forced into a suboptimal choice because of factors outside my control.
When I spoke to my friend Ahmed about all of this, he was helpful in highlighting that what I am seeking in life isn’t wealth, prestige, or power – it’s the freedom to live my life as I see fit. (Though to be fair, freedom is often a by-product of wealth, prestige, or power.)
Essentially, if I reframe this question as the classic “What would you do if you had $100 million in your bank account?”, I would still be writing software here in Chicago. And I would have one killer home theatre. ;-)
Getting back to the business, I am not currently in a position where I can create whatever I want without consequences. I’ve taken on a number of consulting jobs under the theory that I’ll work on others’ projects in order to acquire the resources (time & money) that will enable me to work on my own. In this sense, the work that I’ve been doing for others enabled me to release Shion last month.
While the consulting brings in decent money, I don’t see myself doing it indefinitely. To use a common metaphor, consulting work allows me to continue to build the runway that will let my own work take off. I still maintain the conceit that I will have at least one original idea that will “buy” my full freedom, and working for others allows me to continue looking for it.
I don’t mean to cast the consulting work as the tedium that buys me freedom. I’ve been quite fortunate to find work that pushes me in directions that I want to go professionally as well as explore new topics that I’ve been meaning to look into, but never had a good project to justify the effort. I’m actually quite surprised how much I’m enjoying working on others’ project – I was honestly expecting work that would be much less interesting.
When I began this business, I started out with a grand plan of what I wanted to accomplish. My major plan for 2009 was to launch the Shion home automation platform: a desktop application, a mobile application, and a web service to tie the two together. I am running a bit behind on that project, but I can justify the slower progress by pointing to an overly ambitious plan and recognizing that Shion won’t be an overnight sensation, but something that I will have to grow organically.
In terms of time, I feel like I’m booked from the moment that I get up to the time I go to bed. Lately, I’ve been dealing with some server performance issues for a client, so literally the first thing that I’ve been doing when I get up each morning is checking whether there were any problems overnight. (I think that I’ve finally found and addressed that issue. [Famous last words. -ed.]) I’ve been putting in full days at the office, on the road, and on-site with clients. More often than not, I get home exhausted. However, since I’m dealing with more eustress than distress, it works out okay. That’s not to say that I haven’t been faced with my share of crises and other issues, but I’ve managed to work past them and learn something valuable each time. However, this is certainly a 24/7/365 job.
In summary, this experience has been a tremendous learning experience. I have dealt with highs and lows, but I’m happy doing this work and I’m confident that I’m on the most likely path that will lead me to my long term goals. At the moment, everything seems to be moving in the right direction.
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