Going Solo

Not everything that happens in life is part of a well laid out plan. Recently I suddenly found myself out of the corporate workforce. The company I had worked for during the past five years went through a normal transformation and about one third of the incumbent team were let go.   Including me.

Although I had not planned for this to happen, I had planned to be self sufficient if I ever needed to be and this has led me to where I am today, very excited about what I am about to create next.

At the age of fifty, I have  experienced a great deal of the corporate work environment.  I have run several of my own companies,  crashed and burnt a couple, as well as listed a company on the Australian Stock exchange in 1999.  Dot com 1.0, good times.

I have spent time as a CEO of a CSIRO spin out, I have been a sales specialist at Telstra and recently a regional sales manager at Lifesize, a then division of logitech.  I have had a good run.

I am not certain exactly what I am going to do next and I do have some good ideas.  What I do know is I need a vehicle to do business from and I need a medium to communicate through.   This is what I have done so far:

1. Register business
2. Register internet domain,
   1. Using Godaddy, their customer support is some of the best I have ever experienced.  Is like getting the apple genius bar level of service over the phone.
   2. http://globalitytrading.com, only used for email at this stage.
   3. Using Vallender Dot Com for
      1. this blog
      2. Personal Email
3. Set up Finance Function
   1. Bank Account, Recommended ANZ
   2. Accounting Package – Recommend Xero
4. Set up Operations
   1. Set up Office 365 with Outlook  – I think Microsoft is having a resurgence
   2. Word Press, for this blog

I am really loving all the new Software as a Service, or SaaS as it is being called now.  Setting up my technology has been fun and fast.  The only thing I need to watch out for is that everything is a rabbit hole.  I find myself exploring all this new technology and justifying in real time how I could use it.   In the end I am keeping it simple.

If I am anything in life I am a pragmatist.  One thing I do know is I need to keep my cashflow positive and fortunately, I live on the smell of an oily rag.

I keep my expenses to a minimum, which means I don’t need to earn that much to keep going and my cash burn rate is slow.  I learnt that trick from building start ups 🙂

So now that I am going solo, this is what I am considering as my best options.

1. Entrepreneurial consulting
2. Creating a Youtube channel
3. Traveling the world and Blogging\Vlgogging

So what does that look like?  I will save this for my next post 🙂

About the photo …

Taken in the floating village in Siem Reap, it was my first day on my own in Cambodia and I got to do whatever I wanted.  A friend of mine shared with me he did this trip and to bring some extra cash as you can contribute to the kids who went to one of the two schools floating above the river.

The boat driver earned very little.  Cannot even be sure but I think it was $100 per month.  He had his little brother with him also.  He was the bread winner in the family.   We got along quite well as I had my guide with me who translated the conversation.

The thing I love about traveling is learning more about me by learning about others.  Driving a rickety old boat down a river in an emerging nation and purchasing rice, soup and crackers to contribute to the local schools, man that was a powerfully created moment in my life.