Initial commit

Introduction

I'm an experienced software engineer, and I've always had a massive itch for entrepreneurship. I've made efforts to become my own boss, but after spending way too much time on my last attempt with no structure and no goals, I realised this time needed to be different. Luckily there are so many inspiring self-starters putting content out there, and I came across Rob Walling's book Start Small, Stay Small. I devoured it (with headphones, of course) over the recent holiday period, and my motivation to finally make this happen has been lit anew. I've set myself a goal of starting a business with $100 of recurring revenue by the end of this year, 2023. That might sound crazy small but to me the challenge will be proving to myself I can put something out there that somebody will buy, and I know that milestone (pebble) will be one to celebrate if I can achieve it.

Over the next 12 months I'll be exploring different niches in various industries and looking for pain points that I can solve with software.

My journey

I've always been interested in saving and money, running lemonade and hot chocolate stands and a kid, and getting deep into stocks and crypto in various forms. I've also never truly enjoyed a job I've had. Working for someone else, I just feel something is missing in my life - I need to do it for myself. I am most passionate and excited when building something and getting paying users.

I've "founded" an "agency" before, myself and a mate getting paid to build Wordpress sites when we were first starting out as devs. It didn't quite get to the point of true success and I ended up back in full time work, but I did show myself I can market myself and get people to pay me for services. I've been pretty close with an app for music festivals to manage their volunteers, making a small amount out of that. But I wasn't in the right headspace at the time and I left it. I've got an existing "business", Audio Junkie, which I have spent way more unstructured time on than I care to say, and it costs me more in hosting than I'm getting from google ads right now. There's a whole post on what I've done wrong with that one that I'll share; stay tuned for that.

So, now I'm turning 35, I have a comfortable job at a startup that I've been in for 3 years, and I have the headspace to do this. My wife and I are looking to have kids soon - now is the moment to start.

Accountability

So why waste time writing a blog?

I want to make this time different - I want to be process led. Part of that will be sharing this blog and my weekly updates on my progress towards my goals with my friends and family. I'll send them and update every week, whether I made progress or not. I have this scheduled in my calendar for each week; these updates will force me to make progress, stay on track, and stay productive. I don't want to be embarrassed if I fail.

Fear

My biggest challenge as an introvert and frankly struggling with lack of self esteem will be the fear of putting things out there. I am a massive perfectionist and can get bogged down in minutia. "It isn't perfect, people will judge me."

I need to constantly fight that fear in order to become a solopreneur. Don't let perfect be the perfect be the enemy of good; You aren't only as good as the last thing you released - these mantras I need to keep repeating to myself.

Conclusion

Side note: I'm using the alias "Building Solo" here as I'm not comfortable at the minute with my work knowing I'm trying to replace them. Perhaps that is an irrational fear and I do want and plan to uncloak myself once I'm comfortable that I'm heading in the right direction towards independence.

Even that statement makes me see why I need to work for myself!

Here we go - this blog is for me, but I certainly hope it can be useful to others along their journeys too.