Reinvigorating a Software Business After a Year in the Slowlane

[Dakoded1]

Howdy! It has been months in the making and I am happy to finally start this Execution thread as I feel like this is a place I am going to need for the many months still to follow...

My story is that I discovered coding and web design at a young age and found success relatively quickly. From my teens and into my late 20's I have lived and breathed for developing and selling my own products and working with clients to build their own websites.

I see development as an art and the idea of creating a piece of software that can be handed over to somebody else and work without needing my presence or time is such a rush to me that I never saw myself wanting to do anything else.

The problem with the way I've used my passion is that I've often traded making smart business decisions and shipping fast for extra weeks spent reveling in the details of whichever new feature or initiative I was working on. I never cared about losing money so long as I believed what I was building was the best, and while I still feel strongly about being the best I have also been hit with a reality that someone who finds success young doesn't really understand:

TIME IS RUNNING OUT!

All of this detailing and lone genius sh*t is great when you still live with your parents, don't have bills, never had a girlfriend or gone through other life experiences, and don't have aspirations longer than a couple of weeks out. But time catches up to you eventually... especially when you don't see it coming.

Don't get me wrong, I am still young, energetic, eager to learn, and plan to live a worthwhile life. I honestly (and maybe fortunately) can't say I have yet had a true FTE moment apart from seeing others who are worse at my craft become more successful than me. I am probably a bit too prideful when it comes to my work, and could use a whole lot more discipline and consistency to turn it into a serious business and an emotionally stable one.

...which brings me to the past year, starting in March 2022, where feelings of failure really sunk in and I realized I needed to do something different to stop the cycle of underachievement I had made for myself.

This may sound privileged, ungrateful, idiotic, and probably a slew of other rotten words but I simply stopped knowing how to use my time. My business is making money—albeit quite reliant on my time to make the majority of it—I have a mountain of exciting ideas that can be turned into products and while not rich, I lived a pretty relaxed lifestyle. So much to do!

However, the chaotic work style I developed over the years caused a burnout that I couldn't see was occurring, and if left as it was would only become harder to bear as I get older. I simply wasn't applying the effort I used to and the passion I had turned to gray even though I knew deep down this is the thing I wanted to pursue. It was a contradiction that drove me mad.

So here's where it gets funny. I decided the answer to my woes was to get a job. Yep, I was almost 30 and decided it was time to be a responsible adult and get my first job with a regular paycheck. If I could no longer manage my time, I needed to learn what it was like for somebody else to do it for me.

I chose a local restaurant because it was symbolic of first starting out, which is what most of my friends were doing when I first started my business as a teenager. I also think I was punishing myself a little for what almost felt like a fall from grace, but I found very quickly that I loved what I was doing.

From that point, March 2022 to the beginning of April this year, I mastered every position in that place with a vigor I hadn't felt in a while.

From working the register to waking up early for food prep, eventually running the line, food ordering, hiring and firing, managing a food truck, and all the way to running a build-your-own-kitchen at my city's largest music festival had exposed me to so many skills, situations, teamwork, and disciplines I had simply never experienced before.

I'd love to expand on the many lessons learned at a later time if anybody is interested, and a part of me thinks I may not be fully done with the restaurant or food truck industry in my life.

I know now I am back with a very different perspective and a strong urge to build my business back up, and am certainly ready to take back control of my time and creative energy.

I will use this thread to post my progress of transforming my company, which I had only been working on part time for the past year, from just a software company into truly providing value to my clients and customers. Thank you for following along.

 

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