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Actually, two days ago, I got engaged. We are supposed to get married on summer 2013.
It's been a huge year or two in terms of events. Serious illness, first child, moved to another city, now engaged, and stressed out a lot, scared, tired, burned out, happy at times, it's been a ride! Wouldn't trade it for anything though.
I'm on my way to full recovery in terms of happiness and mental strength. I've come to a realization that is painful but it feels true. I want your input on it, you know me for my long rants but I'm in a difficult position and I would appreciate your experience and wisdom that I've had the opportunity to enjoy before. In short, the issue is, I need to stabilize our household economy and in order to do that, it looks like I have to give up my business. I try to be as short as possible.
So I've started my current professional journey in 2004, still as a student, started to work hard in order to be an expert of a field (information security) in an area that was missing input and expertise, and also answers to many questions (employee issues). I couldn't go anywhere, since there are only few companies in this country that occupy generally these issue in a very vague manner. So I decided to study even harder, take ****ty University jobs that don't pay in order to ensure my position as a doctorate student in the place I wanted to be in. I worked really hard. I laid a 10 year plan. It was the first long term plan I had ever thought about but I was passionate, like someone wants to be a neurosurgeon, there are steps you need to take and it takes a long time, right?
Well this was not neurosurgery, but similarly a path that takes a long time since the area of expertise has to be sort of made. It isn't there even today, there were no good books about the subject either, no good courses, and practitioners seemed to be missing the key as well. So I went into research, again, minimum wage, now a bit into debt myself, I go and study the area, research it. The whole research thing was quite fun, albeit not profitable, and now I was ready to launch my own business with newly made connections. I had partners, I had an existing customer. I had a director in one of the biggest companies in here that actively talked about acquisition and wanting to buy the company. Everything was great. I had people interested from almost all sectors of public side, including heavily security intense parties. 99% liked the approach and product we were about to launch. A dream come true, right? Big plans. Born global. Maybe we'll end up somewhere in between, but even that would be good. Even a mediocre result would be quite awesome.
But we've experienced big pitfalls as of lately. Even though we are finally making our mark, we are still small, with too much overhead, and I'm barely even paying myself. I'm now engaged about to be married with a child, and my SO isn't working at the moment but starting a new career from scratch and beginning studies for it. So I'm the bread winner for quite a few years to come. My only chance is an early exit but even that would be 4-5 years from now at least (to make it worth our effort). I'm basically broke. I can pay our rent and utilities, but I can't do much else. I'm running with a huge risk, if I get sick again (which is a real possibility, unfortunately), we are quite truly ****ed. Any financial or other crisis will sink this boat.
So... I've had to think really hard. I have passion for our customers' issues, but as of now, we have only passive owners who are not living up to their words of what we were supposed to do as A TEAM. If we look at the roadmap, we are nowhere near where we are supposed to be. That means we will experience difficult times this Fall and a quarter or two into the next year. After that it starts to look good again, but I can't go without pay for half a year or lower my salary.
I would be more willing to take the continued risk for high yield but my biggest problem is our team. Now, everyone is good individually, but as a team there's no value added. Nobody has brought new customers for a while and nobody is delivering any services at the moment except for myself. This is not tooting my own horn, I'm saying we're ****ed and with this current team we aren't going to be a functioning company, nor can we follow the roadmap in the near future either. Biggest point is this: the game has changed. I have to take care of other people as well.
The story was quite long but the road to here has been long. It was planned a long time ago, and it succeeded until now. The work was systematic, pain in the ass most of the times and basically very bad financially personally for the big price at the end. I was doing it old school basically and it was, retrospectively, not the best idea.
So... now I'm looking at jobs ads. Man it sucks. I need a job! I do feel like a failure with this. It sucks even more because I think I have to cut losses at the wrong time, I honestly think so. But I have no choices. I don't even know what kind of a job I would even apply for. Information security? Or some generic IT job? But I do need a job quite fast so I can't be very picky about it. Also, employers in here don't like to pay their employees, even less when they have some real relevant experience. I've had quite a few job interviews during my time as an entrepreneuer, but they were mostly for "let's see if they'll let me do this 3 days a week and devote 2 for my own company" or to leverage the position of my company, or to sell my service via my company. One attempt was serious, I was even offered the job but I had to refuse because I felt I couldn't get along with the future boss very well. Nothing wrong with him, but I was in a position where I could choose between comfortable and even more comfortable so I just said no thank you. Now of course I regret that decision.
What should I do? This is actually quite hard, but I feel like I need to let go. This is way too stressful, the price is too low, and I'd be chasing the future evaluation for an exit like an addict is chasing the dragon. But I'm this type of a person, I care about certain things, about ways of doing things, so just getting a job is weird. But I need the money, I need steady income and I need career prospects. I don't want to start from scratch, but then again working some IT job right now would feel like whoring. So I'd need a good position (hard to come by in this little country, even with experience), or to change the field completely. Sell mattresses or something. I don't know what to do, all I know is that I need to do it now or we're screwed in Fall. I'm ready for drastic changes as well, as long as it's a challenge, and pays. I can't do wars.
It's been a huge year or two in terms of events. Serious illness, first child, moved to another city, now engaged, and stressed out a lot, scared, tired, burned out, happy at times, it's been a ride! Wouldn't trade it for anything though.
I'm on my way to full recovery in terms of happiness and mental strength. I've come to a realization that is painful but it feels true. I want your input on it, you know me for my long rants but I'm in a difficult position and I would appreciate your experience and wisdom that I've had the opportunity to enjoy before. In short, the issue is, I need to stabilize our household economy and in order to do that, it looks like I have to give up my business. I try to be as short as possible.
So I've started my current professional journey in 2004, still as a student, started to work hard in order to be an expert of a field (information security) in an area that was missing input and expertise, and also answers to many questions (employee issues). I couldn't go anywhere, since there are only few companies in this country that occupy generally these issue in a very vague manner. So I decided to study even harder, take ****ty University jobs that don't pay in order to ensure my position as a doctorate student in the place I wanted to be in. I worked really hard. I laid a 10 year plan. It was the first long term plan I had ever thought about but I was passionate, like someone wants to be a neurosurgeon, there are steps you need to take and it takes a long time, right?
Well this was not neurosurgery, but similarly a path that takes a long time since the area of expertise has to be sort of made. It isn't there even today, there were no good books about the subject either, no good courses, and practitioners seemed to be missing the key as well. So I went into research, again, minimum wage, now a bit into debt myself, I go and study the area, research it. The whole research thing was quite fun, albeit not profitable, and now I was ready to launch my own business with newly made connections. I had partners, I had an existing customer. I had a director in one of the biggest companies in here that actively talked about acquisition and wanting to buy the company. Everything was great. I had people interested from almost all sectors of public side, including heavily security intense parties. 99% liked the approach and product we were about to launch. A dream come true, right? Big plans. Born global. Maybe we'll end up somewhere in between, but even that would be good. Even a mediocre result would be quite awesome.
But we've experienced big pitfalls as of lately. Even though we are finally making our mark, we are still small, with too much overhead, and I'm barely even paying myself. I'm now engaged about to be married with a child, and my SO isn't working at the moment but starting a new career from scratch and beginning studies for it. So I'm the bread winner for quite a few years to come. My only chance is an early exit but even that would be 4-5 years from now at least (to make it worth our effort). I'm basically broke. I can pay our rent and utilities, but I can't do much else. I'm running with a huge risk, if I get sick again (which is a real possibility, unfortunately), we are quite truly ****ed. Any financial or other crisis will sink this boat.
So... I've had to think really hard. I have passion for our customers' issues, but as of now, we have only passive owners who are not living up to their words of what we were supposed to do as A TEAM. If we look at the roadmap, we are nowhere near where we are supposed to be. That means we will experience difficult times this Fall and a quarter or two into the next year. After that it starts to look good again, but I can't go without pay for half a year or lower my salary.
I would be more willing to take the continued risk for high yield but my biggest problem is our team. Now, everyone is good individually, but as a team there's no value added. Nobody has brought new customers for a while and nobody is delivering any services at the moment except for myself. This is not tooting my own horn, I'm saying we're ****ed and with this current team we aren't going to be a functioning company, nor can we follow the roadmap in the near future either. Biggest point is this: the game has changed. I have to take care of other people as well.
The story was quite long but the road to here has been long. It was planned a long time ago, and it succeeded until now. The work was systematic, pain in the ass most of the times and basically very bad financially personally for the big price at the end. I was doing it old school basically and it was, retrospectively, not the best idea.
So... now I'm looking at jobs ads. Man it sucks. I need a job! I do feel like a failure with this. It sucks even more because I think I have to cut losses at the wrong time, I honestly think so. But I have no choices. I don't even know what kind of a job I would even apply for. Information security? Or some generic IT job? But I do need a job quite fast so I can't be very picky about it. Also, employers in here don't like to pay their employees, even less when they have some real relevant experience. I've had quite a few job interviews during my time as an entrepreneuer, but they were mostly for "let's see if they'll let me do this 3 days a week and devote 2 for my own company" or to leverage the position of my company, or to sell my service via my company. One attempt was serious, I was even offered the job but I had to refuse because I felt I couldn't get along with the future boss very well. Nothing wrong with him, but I was in a position where I could choose between comfortable and even more comfortable so I just said no thank you. Now of course I regret that decision.
What should I do? This is actually quite hard, but I feel like I need to let go. This is way too stressful, the price is too low, and I'd be chasing the future evaluation for an exit like an addict is chasing the dragon. But I'm this type of a person, I care about certain things, about ways of doing things, so just getting a job is weird. But I need the money, I need steady income and I need career prospects. I don't want to start from scratch, but then again working some IT job right now would feel like whoring. So I'd need a good position (hard to come by in this little country, even with experience), or to change the field completely. Sell mattresses or something. I don't know what to do, all I know is that I need to do it now or we're screwed in Fall. I'm ready for drastic changes as well, as long as it's a challenge, and pays. I can't do wars.
unno:
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