Just got laid off, have a family to take care of. Got maximum 120 days on hand. Got some advice?

[Emi Schaftler]

Hello everyone! This will be a little bit of a selfish discussion, I really hope you don't mind reading through and giving me some advice. I dont know how this forum works, assuming you ask a question by making a post. Please correct me if I am wrong!

Brief intro, I am a 16 year old guy. I know what you are thinking, why would a 16 year old need to be on this forum blah blah, why would you need to make money kid, you have your parents!!! Nope I don't, I have to take care of my family financially. My mom is a single mother, and i have a sister who cant yet make money

About my Job, that I just got laid off from 2 days ago. Because of the company running out of money, due to nobody wanting to invest in it since country of the company was basically a warzone for a year or two. I don't want to mention specifics about the company name nor the country but you get the point yeah. I worked as a low tier backend developer in the company, not on an impactful position, a negligible position I would say. But it payed well, well enough to get my family through. But even tho it was not really that good of a job, I still went on with it because 1) it was a remote job 2) I HAD LOTS OF FREE TIME. I just had to work for a few days and I would have unlimited free time, which was such a big advantage and miracle.

Okay now let me tell you about my situation. I just got Laid off. I have max 4 month of time to figure something out before i starve. I have the responsibility of my mom and sister on my shoulder, I cant really take more time. Even tho my mom still has a job at the age of 50, it pays very very little. Not enough at all to cover any bills. I know i know. I am ashamed of my mom still having to work at 50 years of age. I knew I couldn't just wait to get a college degree & get a job blah blah, that would take 10 more years. I had to put ease on my moms shoulder, I really didn't like seeing my family struggle. thats why I took that job above. I have no savings either to put it simply

I was working on a business on the side while having the job, just as I launched the product as beta, everybody in my company got laid off. I feel very uncertain about the business making money. It can certainly help people, but not really have any way for me to realistically make a living off of it in just 4 months time that i got. I dont want to take such a big gamble and be on the street with my family.

I am thinking of putting the business operations on hold right now since I really need to figure out a way of making some money.

And learning a skill, that will help me get a job & help me with my business at the same time. I cant think of any other than digital marketing, or web development (I only know backend so yeah).

You may wonder why do I need to learn another skill? because the 2 years of backend developer experience i had isnt really the best quality of experience, I never had projects with other people, all did it in my own style, to achieve the end result they wished for. And on top of that, its very hard to find a remote job for someone my age, nobody really wants to trust me for that. Even tho I really do have 2 years of experience in the field.

Opening a business and taking a bet on it while i have a 4 months time sounds like a pretty stupid idea. Since its likely to just fail and I will be doomed. I wouldn't mind taking risk and being doomed, i enjoy risk, but remeber, i have to take care of other people too. I am not the only one who faces consequence.


Can you give me some advice / guidance on what I should ideally be doing?
Any skills you recommend me to learn, that will both help me with both job & business? (since i need a job first)
What would you do if you were in my situation?

Thank you so much for reading this whole thing, it got quite big. I appreciate you, the reader

 

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[Kevin88660]

Definitely you should get anything that can give you a stable cashflow, with a job being one of the option.

Sometimes you need to ride on a donkey and look for a horse.

 

[The-J]

Need a job now? Need freelance work now? Call in every possible favor you can. Ask everyone you know if they, or anyone else they know, needs help with backend development (which is something you know how to do).

People to reach out to:

• Current clients, or anyone who has paid you recently
• Old employers and clients
• Coworkers (including the ones that got laid off with you, they might have an opportunity that you could jump onto)
• Family
• Friends
• Family friends
• Family of friends

Exhaust that list. In 120 days you should hit this list up at least 3 times.

Right now your survival > your business, but maybe your business can generate some cash right now. If you have a product that you want to launch (say, a software product), now is the time to get presales. If you don't think your thing is good enough to sell, come up with an offer that would be good enough to sell & get presales for it. Same thing: ask everyone you know, and everyone they know, then reach out to people you don't know who you think would buy it. Do this quick, you don't have a lot of time. Stop sinking money into the business and get SALES.

In the meantime: apply to every paying job you can do. Use job platforms, use freelance platforms, whatever it is, just get in front of people. But the job market is tough right now, so don't feel too bad if you don't get anything from this. Applying to jobs doesn't take much time, just spin up resumes and cover letters tailored to the job application (use ChatGPT to do this). Interviews might take a lot of time, but interviews are good.

Good luck.

 

[chazwazzer]

2 questions before I can make a decent reply.

1. how much money does the family need each month to survive?
2. what is the family currently bringing in?

 

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