Full circle
So, I seem to have come full circle… let me explain:
After quitting a dayjob working for the man almost a year ago to try venturing out on my own, I’m now working at a bank 9-5. Working for the man again, if you will. It’s not so bad, really, there are some good guys I’m working with now (nerf gun fights at a bank, really?) but i’ve had a few people laugh for taking such a safe job! Well, too bad - i’ve got bills to pay! You’d do the same, wouldn’t you? Here’s hoping your road to entrepreneurship is less pot-holed than mine :)
Progress
So, speaking of bills, how’s my contracting-to-slay-my-old-builders-debt quest going? Lets see, we’re out of pocket a certain amount (email me if you’d like to discuss details!). Doing some sums for what risky contracting pays (post-tax) over what safe full-time work pays, it looks like I’m almost exactly 1/3rd of the way through that debt. So roughly 40 more weeks to go. So basically around christmas we should be OK again. I hadn’t done the sums until it was time to write this blog, i didn’t realise it would be so long. Ouch - debt hurts, especially when it’s not really your fault. Choose your builder wisely!
On the plus side, our new builder is progressing nicely. Half the brickwork is up now, it’s beginning to look more house-y. Now we have to spend hours choosing things like doors and kitchen stuff and tiles and so on. And colour schemes! I’m so worried that i’ll mess up the colours and the place will look terrible.
Snepo
So, what have I been up to the last 9 weeks? Well, I’ve been contracting at a super-cool joint in Sydney called Snepo, working on an enterprise iPad app (huge market there, i had no idea), and a funnier app: Fundawear! Just look it up on Youtube (maybe not while you’re at work), I promise you’ll have a laugh. Pretty embarrasing app for a pretty-boring conservative family guy like me but what the heck sometimes you gotta do something fun. We got almost 5 million hits on youtube out of it would you believe! Anyway, thanks Ben for the opportunity to have fun with that project, you were a champ to work for :)
Positivity
So I finished that book on learned optimism by seligman. He basically said you need to deliberately think on problems as temporary and not affecting all areas of your life. It was a cracker! Heck, if i can get through all this having learned how to be a more optimistic guy in general, it won’t have been an entirely wasted year. Anyway I’m going to read his later book, ‘Flourish’ soon.
Amusingly, I read another book by mistake last week: ‘Who switched off your brain’ by Dr Leaf. True story, I was meant to read her other book ‘Who switched off my brain’ as recommended by my wife - I ordered the wrong one. The ‘my brain’ book is about having healthy thought patterns, whereas the ‘your brain’ book is about marriage and the physical differences in our brains. Did you know that men have 10x the grey matter in our brains than women, and women have 6x the white matter? Fascinating, but not very useful in my quest to become more positive. Seriously, who reads a wrong book by mistake?
Entrepreneurship
You may recall I hired a guy to make some artwork for a game via eLance, and was saying it was awesome. Well… he hasn’t gotten back to me in a while, I think it’s not going to happen. Oh well, it was worth a try. I’m still not going to bother making iOS productivity apps, but a mate is dead set on convincing me to make a SaaS web-app - Scott, i’ll get to it one day I promise! You write one first, make a living from it, then i’ll be super-keen!
Oh, speaking of SaaS: microconf just finished. It’s like the conference for boostrapping SaaS entrepreneurs - can’t wait till the videos are up!
Screencasts
So, I recorded a few screencasts on iOS development and threw them up on Youtube / Hacker News to see if anyone was interested. Looking at the youtube stats, it turns out that nobody was interested :) Well, was worth a try! I still think there’s a market for learning materials for how to make iOS apps out there somewhere. Having said that, i don’t think i’ll bother recording any more screencasts at this stage.
Anyway, all the best to all the budding entrepreneurs out there, keep clawing away at it all, have a great month or so till I write next! Please send emails, i love having a chat about all this kind of stuff :)
Thanks for reading! And if you want to get in touch, I'd love to hear from you: chris.hulbert at gmail.
Chris Hulbert
(Comp Sci, Hons - UTS)
Software Developer (Freelancer / Contractor) in Australia.
I have worked at places such as Google, Cochlear, Assembly Payments, News Corp, Fox Sports, NineMSN, FetchTV, Coles, Woolworths, Trust Bank, and Westpac, among others. If you're looking for help developing an iOS app, drop me a line!
Get in touch:
[email protected]
github.com/chrishulbert
linkedin
