Explore the Uncharted Path

We launched the first run of limited edition art prints at TheTechMargin yesterday.

I completed the painting "Selfie" (painted under my artist's pseudonym, BinaryLady) via livestream. 

To own one of one hundred in the edition of "Selfie" prints, click this link.

Happy New Year also. Welcome 2024. The focus for this year is more evident than it was at the beginning of 2023. At this time last year, I was learning about the layoffs that would impact me and many colleagues in the tech sector.

My rebelliousness served me well in solidifying my grit around learning WTF this whole entrepreneur thing is about. Thankfully, my startup experience gave me a primer on the number of hats my modest cranium would be required to wear throughout every stage of the startup founder journey.

As a coder, I have found stubbornness to be the best predictor of whether or not one will stick to the problem long enough to synthesize a working solution: pure alchemy.

Take that private happy dance; you've earned it.

I am confident that the same dogged determination must be annoyingly core to your personality and a trait you can't shake as a founder.

There is no path where you are treading. You will sweat and swat at more than a few flies before you exit the jungle of uncertainty and enter the sweet valley of earning your living with no boss.

Essential learnings from this past year include but are not limited to the following:

1. Start anywhere.

   1. Pick anything and be willing to learn enough to know when you need to pivot, but don't let shiny new things be the only reason you pivot.

2. Focus is imperative, but don't be emotionally attached to your ideas, especially not the first ideas.

3. Ideas are cheap, plentiful, easy to talk about, and meaningless until executed.

4. Execution is 1000x more important than ideas.

5. See point number one.

I feel okay about where I am in my first year in entrepreneurship. I have humility about the journey thus far and the path ahead (which I will find and then bushwhack).

My parents started a business when I was a teenager; it was an incredibly stressful time in their lives and mine by proxy.

My mom, who had been working as a paralegal secretary for many years, turned these skills into the primary offering of their service-based business.

Swallowed into a sea of tasks, she typed like there was no tomorrow. Sadly, college students, late on papers, and lawyers lacking staff did not want to pay someone what their time was worth to transpose and edit their ramblings and dictations. After about a year, the business folded. Debt collectors plagued our phones, and loud arguments filled the void of dinner conversations.

Life moved on, and the only remnant of my parent's failed attempt at business were the fading bruises to their collective egos and the losses absorbed by dwindling savings. My dad got a new job, and we moved to Memphis.

My dad taught me a lot about corporate life and the ego death accompanying failure. He used to bring connectors home in glass vials, gold-plated objects important enough to have a custom container protecting the technological jewels within.

Beyond the engineering world, stories of the world of ladder climbing and backstabbing permeated our household discussions. The lesson I took from parental dinner-time conversations about corporate intrigue: the closer you get to the sun, the harder you fall, and the more people are willing to push you out of their way.

I decided early on that engineering is far more appealing than management or sales, at least to me. Eventually, layoffs forced my hand to take the massive leap into the void of self-reliance through entrepreneurship.

Life is a funny thing. We are going through it, yet we seek to improve it for ourselves and our loved ones. We are total crap at envisioning anything on the other side of next week; still, we force ourselves to manifest a brighter tomorrow. We can mold our bodies and minds as soon as we reach the age of awareness; most adults ignore their bodies and their minds until one or both fail them. We seek greatness despite being thwarted by the false belief that only people like this or that can do significant work.

We are our own worst enemies, and though we have the statistically improbable capacity of consciousness, the present moment is elusive, and the past and future, neither of which exist at this moment, consume the focus of almost all of us.

I want to live this life awake, and I know you do too. We have a choice right now, at this moment, and always. The choice is one of three possible actions: rumination and blaming of others, sorrow and pity of self, or action towards goals we set for ourselves, no matter how personal or small.

Taking action and owning our moments of life is the path. Take care of yourself and someone else while you are at it. Enjoy the journey, even the lows and feelings of discomfort, as these are the precursors to growth.

—S

And for those of you considering taking the leap into entrepreneurship, now is a wonderful time to lay down tracks for your future venture. If you aren’t sure where to begin, keep your planning light and high level.

In a wiki style editor, organize your brainstorms and refine them as you jot down new ideas when they come. I use Notion for my startup for ideation, project planning, and collaborating with partners on content. Anything that allows you to keep loose and organized will do.

If you sign up for Notion using my link, you are also helping support the work I do. Thank you for taking the journey with me!