Last week my latest contract wrapped up. It was originally supposed to be a six month contract but ended up going over 18 months. I first went independent and formed Infozerk back in 2004 and since that time I have spent the majority of my time on long-term contracts. The stability of a long-term contract is nice, but sometimes it can feel too much like being a full-time employee. My main issue with this contract was that it was hard to find the time I need to dedicated to The Lounge and Ruby Row to make sure they are doing the best they can.
Going forward I am going to avoid both long-term contracts and full-time contracts, but more importantly over the next 2-3 months I am going to focus full-time on The Lounge and Ruby Row (and building other new networks). Over the last 12 months both networks have done very well and while they aren’t generating enough revenue to justify quitting consulting completely, my hope is that by focusing full-time I can get to the point where I won’t need consulting anymore very quickly.
This is slightly contrarian to my normal stance that people should wait to quit their job until their project is generating enough revenue to completely replace their other income (either consulting or full-time job) but I feel strongly that I can’t grow these networks and business past their current state without being able to spend all my time on them. I have also had this in mind for quite some time so I have saved money in the business and can continue to pay myself my normal wage for long enough to justify taking this chance. I do feel this is very different from just saving up money and quitting to try out a project that isn’t making any money as The Lounge and Ruby Row are making enough to make me feel much more comfortable about quitting.
I am incredibly excited to have this chance to focus full-time on this project and really see if I can make it work. Over the next 2-3 months I hope to launch a number of new networks and continue to grow The Lounge and Ruby Row. I am also going to start working on a transition to Amazon EC2 to enable me to continue to grow in the future.
I plan on blogging about it every step of the way.
-James
Comments on this entry are closed.