While I am firmly established as an entrepreneur, having started one company of my own (skeevisArts) and been CTO of a now-acquired startup, I know that the business that I’m in is a means to an end. As much as I love to work with awesome clients and grow my roster weekly, this is not what I want to do long term. My dream is to build products.
I’ve been lucky enough to surround myself with other experienced professionals who have made the switch from client services to products, and they constantly goad me to start focusing on my own product. I’ve realized, with more and more certainty, that now is the team. And I start ideating.
Then I look up at the list of active, on-deck, and potential projects. And I get back to work.
A local developer compared client services to a cheap drug – it’s easy to get high. And skeevisArts is going well, but I must keep fighting and re-focusing myself to build out a product (or products, to satisfy my multi-track mind).
After the Google style of working – I’m currently gearing myself towards an 80%/20% solution. 80% devoted to running skeevisArts, and 20% devoted to my own ventures. It’s more challenging than I thought, as I never imagined myself being this heavily in demand and having so little extra-curricular time. Others have said “well, just take on fewer clients.” Yeah right 🙂