Taking the Leap

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do." — Mark Twain

Starting a business without any source of income feels like jumping off a plane without a parachute. And that’s my current situation.

Today I bring a more personal post, so read it at your own risk.

Taking the leap

Unemployable

Since my last freelance contract ended, I’ve tried to find a new opportunity to cover basic expenses. I’m even open to a full-time, remote project that pays well and is not terribly dull. But I’ve had no luck so far. A lot of recruiters reach out to me on LinkedIn, but it feels like spam. They don’t share the full job spec or the compensation. Yet, they expect me to jump on a call with them. Ambitious.

When they disclose the salary range, it’s usually below my rates. In case it meets my expectations, I have a hard time playing the meek employee role. This wasn’t me in the past. I could nail the interview process and land the position. But now something’s changed.

F*ck you money

The market has dried up, my expectations have gone up, and I have more f*ck you money. Money is like truth serum — if you have enough of it, you can be more true to yourself. I have enough to realise how unfulfilling my career feels. But not enough to comfortably retire and tell everyone to f*ck off on LinkedIn.

Don’t get me wrong, data engineering is incredibly lucrative. I’ve received contracts that paid €1,000+ per day, placing me in the top 0.1% earners in Portugal — but that’s not enough to make me happy. If it’s not my own thing, I’m not entirely happy. And it shows.

When I do land a good role, it’s nice to have a stable income. But I don’t feel challenged. So I start my own projects on the side, which never take off because I’m not hungry enough. You see, having a steady source of income makes you treat your projects as a hobby — not as a job.

A salary is the drug they give you to forget your dreams.

— Keving O’Leary

Taking the leap

In the last few months there’s alway been a question on my mind — should I find a new regular job or focus full-time on entrepreneurship? My gut tells me I should take the leap and go for the latter, but I keep second-guessing myself. I would rather eat a nail than be an employee or freelancer in the long-term. But it doesn’t make full-time entrepreneurship any less scary.

I’ve started a number of projects and I didn’t pursue them long enough to make money. This newsletter is the one I’ve taken the most seriously so far. The rest were speculative tech products that I could’ve made into a startup, had I put in the effort and the consistency. But that’s not what I wanted either.

I’ve always thought I had to found my own startup, and I couldn’t be more wrong. A successful startup makes you a slave during 5-10 years. Successful founders don’t have free time, and that’s the resource that I value the most. Somehow I didn’t consider other business models that wouldn’t make me miserable. But they exist, even if they’re not as glamorous as a startup.

Enter lifestyle businesses.

A lifestyle business is a business set up and run by its founders primarily with the aim of living or maintaining a certain lifestyle.

— Wikipedia

I don’t want to have employees, nor do I aspire to become a unicorn. What I seek is a business that sustains my lifestyle and gives me the freedom to do what I want. I have friends who make a modest living from affiliate marketing, working less than five hours per week. That’s a viable business model too.

Tim Ferris, author of The 4 Hour Work Week, refers to this kind of business as a muse. A muse has the following features:

• It doesn’t take more than two weeks to test.

• Startup costs are less than $500.

• It can be fully automated or delegated after some months.

Maybe this was possible in 2007, when the book was released, but I haven’t found any business model that meets these criteria in 2024 — if you do, let me know. I’ve found something that seems good enough though.

My muse

After a lot of research and introspection, e-commerce seems to be the best business model for me.

Initially, I was discouraged because I couldn’t picture myself packing and shipping products. It didn’t sound enjoyable. But then I discovered that someone else could handle that for me. I’m not talking about dropshipping, but about Amazon FBA.

FBA stands for Fulfilment By Amazon. Under this program, Amazon picks and packs your orders and sends them to the customers. All you have to do is choose a product, manufacture it, and send it to Amazon Fulfilment Centers. It’s the kind of business in which you have to make good decisions, but you don’t have to work that hard.

I was a bit hesitant to share this publicly. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll have to explain myself in the future. But maybe it helps me connect with people in the same situation. So far I’ve done the following:

1. Register a company in the U.S.

2. Open a business bank account.

3. Choose a product in a promising niche.

4. Have a designer create a logo for my brand.

5. File the trademark application with the USPTO.

6. Close a purchase agreement that I wrote with a manufacturer.

I’ll be spending around $10,000 to start up. Much more than what I planned, but acceptable if the projected financials are even slightly realistic. The good news is that I’ll know if there’s demand for my product pretty fast. If it’s not the right thing, I’ll break even at best, or lose a few grand at worst. If it’s the right product, I’ll scale up what works and cut down what doesn’t.

I’m optimistic about it and I’m enjoying every little bit of the process. Making decisions, negotiating terms, and handling international shipments is thrilling. It makes feel… Fulfilled.

If you’re in a similar situation, I’d love to hear about your story.

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Photo of the week

Torre del Oro, Seville