Rincewind
Don't give up and never hide
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- Jun 4, 2016
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Hi guys,
I'm registered here since 2016 and was quite inactive here during the last years. When I posted here the last time, I was still freelancing. Lots of stuff happened since then.
And: I'm so F*cking tired. Since we hired our assistant I got down from working 80h weeks to perhaps working 50h weeks. But there is no space in my life where I can stop for some time without some fire breaking out. At home I only have to wait 30s until one of the kids launches chaos and madness, at work we're still dealing with the scaling from 6 to 17 people in 9 months and there is not much life left aside the company and the kids.
And: I know that a professional services firm without any tweaks is not fastlane at all. Currently I'm working way too much and if I would stop working everything would stop. Sales is coupled to my person far too much and in the end we are replaceable by any other software services company with some smart guys and perhaps a CEO without kids...
I started learning about real estate two years ago, want to invest here and don't find any time at all to go scouting. We are even active in our chuch community and will perhaps get notice when some elderly people will move out of their homes and want to sell. But I don't have the time to deal with just another topic right now. I also learned about selling stock options and just stumbled across MJ's thread. I wanted to start exactly that strategy one year ago and even created a trading account where I can sell naked options and put 10k into it early this year. But I don't find the time to really commit to it and take the time to practice and start.
In this moment I don't even know which question I want to ask and why a write here. I know here are many very intelligent people and many of you have been at my current point in life. I know I achieved a lot and I created a truly great starting point to go fastlane from here. But I'm so tired. I have a hectic life at the moment with two very small kids and I just don't know how to get to the next level from here. I don't even know what the next level would look like.
In the next few years my engineering company will mature, we will develop our processes, I will hire some sales person, we will start making solid profits. I have all the todos and I know I will do it. We will scale our security startup some more and sell it in a few years and make a very good return on our initial invest. Our 75k grew by 10x on paper today, I expect to sell our shares for 3+ mio when we're ready. Our kids will grow up, go to school and someday stop interrupting me every 3,27 seconds when I'm in sight. Someday I will find the time to sell my first stock option and someday I will by my first real estate invest. I will even sell our family Volvo V70 and buy an 911 when I can travel with less stuff.
The perspective is quite good. And it is not fastlane. And I'm tired and frustrated.
When you had this situation as a starting point - what would you do with that?
P.S. I started playing golf this year and get our once a week for half a day and I get to the office with my bike 1-2x per week. I drink alcohol only on weekends and I'm not in a bad physical shape. It could be much better but it's not bad.
I'm registered here since 2016 and was quite inactive here during the last years. When I posted here the last time, I was still freelancing. Lots of stuff happened since then.
- I started an engineering service business together with my wife. We develop IoT products for german medium size businesses
- We were profitable since the first month, scaled from 30k (2016) to 100k (2017) to 300k (2018) and should reach 900k by end of the year. So far we re-invested mostly everything into growth, so there is only a little profit yet.
- We hired our first employee 2017 and have grown to 17 people (including 1 designer, 1 UX and 1 assistant). Some of them work work part time, so we are really "only" 9 FTE
- We got our second child a few weeks after starting the company
- We moved into a larger office this year
- I started networking into the old economy around Hamburg, I'm part of the local chamber of commerce for example and I'm very well connected
- I started a podcast and interview business leaders every other week, I have 62 interviews online and get to meet CEOs of large companies and directors of DAX level companies. I use this podcast partly to get visibility and partly as a cold-calling tool to meet interesting prospects. We could have much more downloads but I did not spend much time into online marketing the content yet.
- We invested into to a startup (sweat equity) very early after founding the company. This startup has grown into the security industry of south africa, reached break even this month and will raise a 3-5 Mio Series A early next year
- We implemented all processes in our engineering company completely remote-capable, we can tackle projects with 3x our internal capacity. We find the freelance talent via upwork and our local network. We can provide work worth 3+ mio at full scale now and have fixed cost of "only" 700k.
And: I'm so F*cking tired. Since we hired our assistant I got down from working 80h weeks to perhaps working 50h weeks. But there is no space in my life where I can stop for some time without some fire breaking out. At home I only have to wait 30s until one of the kids launches chaos and madness, at work we're still dealing with the scaling from 6 to 17 people in 9 months and there is not much life left aside the company and the kids.
And: I know that a professional services firm without any tweaks is not fastlane at all. Currently I'm working way too much and if I would stop working everything would stop. Sales is coupled to my person far too much and in the end we are replaceable by any other software services company with some smart guys and perhaps a CEO without kids...
I started learning about real estate two years ago, want to invest here and don't find any time at all to go scouting. We are even active in our chuch community and will perhaps get notice when some elderly people will move out of their homes and want to sell. But I don't have the time to deal with just another topic right now. I also learned about selling stock options and just stumbled across MJ's thread. I wanted to start exactly that strategy one year ago and even created a trading account where I can sell naked options and put 10k into it early this year. But I don't find the time to really commit to it and take the time to practice and start.
In this moment I don't even know which question I want to ask and why a write here. I know here are many very intelligent people and many of you have been at my current point in life. I know I achieved a lot and I created a truly great starting point to go fastlane from here. But I'm so tired. I have a hectic life at the moment with two very small kids and I just don't know how to get to the next level from here. I don't even know what the next level would look like.
In the next few years my engineering company will mature, we will develop our processes, I will hire some sales person, we will start making solid profits. I have all the todos and I know I will do it. We will scale our security startup some more and sell it in a few years and make a very good return on our initial invest. Our 75k grew by 10x on paper today, I expect to sell our shares for 3+ mio when we're ready. Our kids will grow up, go to school and someday stop interrupting me every 3,27 seconds when I'm in sight. Someday I will find the time to sell my first stock option and someday I will by my first real estate invest. I will even sell our family Volvo V70 and buy an 911 when I can travel with less stuff.
The perspective is quite good. And it is not fastlane. And I'm tired and frustrated.
When you had this situation as a starting point - what would you do with that?
P.S. I started playing golf this year and get our once a week for half a day and I get to the office with my bike 1-2x per week. I drink alcohol only on weekends and I'm not in a bad physical shape. It could be much better but it's not bad.
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