Coffeeshop Observations: #5

A crossroads of sorts, not in a coffee shop

Inspiration is a fickle thing. It comes and it goes. I’ve historically known this about myself. I either have very little happening and I’m going through the motions because I’ve seen through how short-lived my excited episodes can be, or I’m in one of those short-lived episodes and I am bouncing off the walls with excitement over an app idea. Splurv, Abacus, the personal finance thing is a rare example of an episode of inspiration and excitement that has been lasting — on and off and there have been some serious off phases — for the better part of the last 3 years. And that’s exciting. I find myself at a current crossroads with my career, however, a certain forcing function has been bestowed down to me in the form of an opportunity: to work the equivalent of full-time hours if not more over the course of the next 3 months in an attempt to meet a deadline for a contracting gig that up until now I’ve been barely breaking 20 hours a week for as supplemental income. It’ll be a nice pile of cash at the end of it. It’ll be fun to work on a team again. It’ll give me rigor and structure to fit in 40 hours a week again. It will give me a sense of accomplishment surely.

Another set of signs from the cosmos came down pretty much at the exact same time. A Scott Galloway article on the demise of marketing due to people not wanting to be tracked inspired me once more to run a software company in a different way: one of candor, transparency, and most importantly, not a money churning, for-profit, VC backed and marketing propped-up pile of board meetings and shallow mission statements that veer far from the actual money trail. A friend of mine texted me saying none of the finance apps out there currently actually do what older versions of Splurv did and that he wants my app back and functioning again, and that he thinks there’s a market for it. And then my own realization that I quit Guild 3 months ago to pursue a dream and instead have been piddle paddling between spurts of work for the contract gig, spurts of organizing my room, and spurts of wondering what to do next with my life. Not so fun.

So now a decision. Maybe. Moonlighting the finance project after 40 hours of contract work puts me in the same boat I was in 6 months ago. I was working 40 hours a week for a full time job while moonlighting on the side. And then the moon got too big for me. It was too bright to see anything else. So I quit my job and took a leap towards that light. And then suddenly, the moon disappeared as if it had snuck around a corner while my back was turned. As did my Earth. And so naturally I started floating for a while, and that certainly wasn’t the best of things.

So now the question, perhaps, is: return to Earth for a while and do some heads-down, not super inspiring work as a means to an end, find my rocket boosters and actually make an attempt to shoot for that moon again, or continue floating in between but in a more intentional way where I can have my cake and eat it too, somehow. Or perhaps something totally different will happen. Perhaps an alien space-ship will swoop by and take me to a new galaxy altogether. I swear I’m not on mushrooms as I write this. There’s the 20 minute timer. Excellent timing watch, excellent timing.