”Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.” Frank Herbert, Dune
In this edition:
- Mission Briefing (WTF is going on)
- Classified Intel (interesting links)
Mission Briefing
Fear is the mind-killer
Who am I kidding. I’m riddled with fear. So scared I feel sick if I think about it too much. And I’m a thinker. Someone said “courage is being afraid but doing it anyway”. So I’m brave, at least.
What am I being brave about? Well, I’ll tell you.
I’m suddenly without a job, or any form of income. The best-laid plans sometimes don’t work out, so this is where I’ve ended up. Let’s face it - I’m unemployable anyway. There comes a point in your career where you have so much experience nobody will employ you. That’s me and a significant number of my peers too.
I’ve got nothing to lose, so I’m going to document my warts-and-all journey from here to wherever-the-hell I end up. It might help someone like me who ends up in the same situation. Or act as a cautionary tale.
What’s the plan?
I’ve had a week to think about this (hence the nausea). A few people have helped me refine my plans, for which I’m incredibly grateful, but I’m working this out as I go along.
I have two things going for me:
- actual skills (I can make shit happen)
- a phenomenal amount of experience with emerging tech (no point humble-bragging about it)
That’s it. No pot of cash to invest in anything. Both of those things are valuable to someone out there, though. So, I’m now self-employed, which is code for “I’m not employed at all”.
The thing that’s dominated my week has been this question: how are you going to make money?
What will this self-employment consist of? It’s bound to evolve, but it has to be based on my skills and experience, right? Either that or try to get a job as an Amazon delivery driver. Bet I wouldn’t even get an interview.
Here’s where I’m at.
Skills -> Making Digital Stuff -> Products
Experience -> Solving Problems -> Consulting / Training / Speaking
Volcano Base
When I started my last business (10 years ago), I was in a similar situation and had to get set up FAST. So fast, I ended up using my PlayStation username as the name of the company, rather than over-think it.
This time, I still need to move fast, but am being more thoughtful about the composition of the offer and my Ideal Customer Profile. From a product perspective, what I’m planning to offer will probably be most valuable to 1-5 person businesses. Handily, I’d trademarked Volcano Base a long time ago, so I’ll use that as the trading ID. I got the trademark because I had some spare cash and fancied making a bunch of t-shirts. A tale for another day, but it means I don’t need to waste any time on visual assets.
So, my priority now is to finalise the offer so I can tell people about it. For the products, I REALLY want some 1-5 person businesses to try it for free, so I can learn what doesn’t work, the barriers to consideration etc.
But more about that next time.
Classified Intel
Some interesting stuff I discovered on my adventures.
Using text and audio as inputs, this new generative AI model from NVIDIA can create any combination of music, voices and sounds.
This challenging read from Zoe was the thing that tipped the scales on launching Volcano Base.
Google’s quantum chip performed a standard benchmark computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers 10 septillion years - a number that vastly exceeds the age of the Universe.
