34, senior software engineer, ten years in tech. Layoffs announced at my company today. Don't know if I'm on the list yet.
Did the usual thing and opened the job boards. Closed them again. I've spent years going back and forth on 9–5 vs my own thing, always with a good reason to wait. That reason just got pulled. The industry's in bits and in a way I'm glad, I'm done with one company having my entire livelihood in its hands and deciding what I earn, what I work on and how many days off I get. I'd rather work 60 hours for myself and own the outcome. People around me are pushing the "safe option". That option isn't safe anymore and everyone knows it but we seem to be still playing the same song and dance of climbing the corporate ladder - the ladder is slowly falling apart and more importantly it's no longer a ladder I want to climb.
Where I'm starting from: ten years building software for big companies, a decent run of freelancing with real clients, no business. I know "I build websites" is a dead offer, so I'm not leading with that. I need to find a problem that costs business owners money or time and get paid to fix it.
First target: one paying client. Not a product, not a brand, not a landing page. One client.
Week 1 plan: talk to 20 business owners I already know or can reach, ask what's eating their time, don't build anything.
Weekly updates here with real numbers, including the bad weeks. Hold me to it.
Did the usual thing and opened the job boards. Closed them again. I've spent years going back and forth on 9–5 vs my own thing, always with a good reason to wait. That reason just got pulled. The industry's in bits and in a way I'm glad, I'm done with one company having my entire livelihood in its hands and deciding what I earn, what I work on and how many days off I get. I'd rather work 60 hours for myself and own the outcome. People around me are pushing the "safe option". That option isn't safe anymore and everyone knows it but we seem to be still playing the same song and dance of climbing the corporate ladder - the ladder is slowly falling apart and more importantly it's no longer a ladder I want to climb.
Where I'm starting from: ten years building software for big companies, a decent run of freelancing with real clients, no business. I know "I build websites" is a dead offer, so I'm not leading with that. I need to find a problem that costs business owners money or time and get paid to fix it.
First target: one paying client. Not a product, not a brand, not a landing page. One client.
Week 1 plan: talk to 20 business owners I already know or can reach, ask what's eating their time, don't build anything.
Weekly updates here with real numbers, including the bad weeks. Hold me to it.
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