007 - What Have I Done?

I haven’t recorded for a while. I’d apologize for that, but it simply hasn’t felt right to sit down and go on about myself and what I’m doing while the world continues to be bombarded by COVID-19 and all the things that come with that.

So, why record an episode now? Because things are changing, and recently they changed in a fairly substantial way.

Today is Friday, May 29th, and yesterday was officially my last day with the company I’ve been working for for the past 4 years or so. Although I gave my boss a 3-month notice, I still feel somewhat bad about having left and knowing that someone else is going to have to figure out how to take up what/where I left off.

After a number of conversations with my boss, we’ve actually worked out a deal where I’ll be doing some freelance work for them. So, it hasn’t fully sunk in yet that I am now “out on my own.”

Freelancer not Solo Founder

I already can imagine people listening to this episode and saying... wait a minute, I thought he was trying to become a solo founder, why would he call himself a freelancer at this point. Why not go ahead and embrace the term solo founder?

Welp, the deal is that I haven’t founded anything yet. I will need to make money to pay my bills, so while I will be working towards the goal of being a solo founder on a number of different projects, my primary focus for the next months will be to make ends meet.

So, if you’re looking for a web designer or need a website built, I’d be happy to talk with you. You can head over to nodlestudios.com and find the contact page to get in touch.

What Comes Next?

While my main focus over the next several months is definitely on a number of client projects, I do plan to continue working on a number of my personal projects as well.

GoSelva

The first thing that comes to mind that I’ve got to start working on is my project management app, GoSelva. I’ve been using it for almost four months now I believe and I keep running into issues and things that need to be addressed.

Maybe you know how it is when you have an idea for something and you put together the very basics of what you need. At first, you’re just amazed that it works and are a little bit smug about how well it works, but as you continue to use it you start to realize all the little things that you hadn’t even considered.

The core of what I’ve got at this point is good, but the features are pretty lacking if I’m being honest. Right now it isn’t a lot more than a glorified todo list... which in some ways is exactly what I want GoSelva to be. I just want it to be a much smarter and more fully-featured todo list app. :)

Another App Idea

In case I’ve forgotten to mention it, I grew up on a farm and still live on a farm. So there are a number of things over the years that I’ve built small apps for. One of those apps is actually something that could be useful for other farmers.

Recently I was talking with a fellow and mentioned one of the apps that I have already built for use here on our farm. He expressed some interest in being able to do the same thing for his farm.

This particular app isn’t the biggest app in the world, but it is a bit time-sensitive. So I’m hoping to reconfigure and rebuild it so that it would be in a state where I could sell it to other farmers who might be interested in using it this fall.

Hitting the Road

One of the big reasons I’ve been interested in becoming a freelancer or a solo founder is the freedom that I assume it can give me. I realize that there are ways in which it is much more freeing to just work a 9-5 job and then go home in the evenings, but being able to make my own schedule, and more importantly, pursue and work on projects that mean something to me... well all of those things are parts of the reason that I’m at this point today.

I’ve always enjoyed travel and have made several trips over the past few years. Usually, they were either “go to a specific city for a month and continue working remotely” kinds of trips, or they needed to fit into a couple of weeks of vacation every year.

Next week I plan to embark on a 3-4 week excursion across the American South West. I’ll be doing some work along the way, but I’ll also be taking photos and hopefully producing a body of photography work that can be useful for a number of things.

The Podcast Going Forward

Now that I’m officially a freelancer I do intend to publish podcast episodes more frequently. It probably will be on about an every other week basis for now, but if I have something interesting that I’m working on I might go weekly from time to time.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for listening, and I’ll chat with you in another few weeks.