Check out this excerpt from the Getting Real book by 37signals.
“Run on limited resources and you’ll be forced to reckon with constraints earlier and more intensely. And that’s a good thing. Constraints drive innovation.”
Say you make “the jump” from employed to self-employed. You probably have little money, few or no clients, and very limited resources. Your constraints will force you to succeed. It will take a lot of work and patience but you’ll do it. If you’re not willing to put in the work then you shouldn’t have made “the jump” in the first place.
At the Refresh meeting James mentioned that he started Forty Media with no clients. Now he owns one of the more well known web design companies in the state and all over the country.
Constraints motivate us to succeed and cause us …
Want to know what the worst feeling in the world is?
It’s running your guts out just to get passed by somebody in the last 10 meters.
Except, I got passed by 2 people. Not just one.
Atleast I won an Easy Button from this guy.
I know it’s been awhile since part 1, 2, and 3 but that’s because I thought I had the question answered.
At the Refresh meeting James Archer passed around a magical red box for people to submit any questions they might have about owning a small business or entrepreneurship. James would randomly pick questions out of the box and let the group discuss it. I took this opportunity to poll the group to see how many of them had gone to college and if they thought it was worthwhile. Fortunately my question was picked (we didn’t have enough time to finish all of them at the meeting) and I would guess about 95% of the 50+ people who attended had either graduated from college with a degree or were working towards it. Even more surprising to me was …
Spec projects are projects done for free for others or yourself. At the Refresh Phoenix meeting this topic was brought up and the general opinion of Refreshers was that you shouldn’t do spec projects. It seems most people don’t like to do spec projects because they’re too busy. If they did a spec project it would take time away from their current client work. Spec projects should be done to help you get more work. If you’re already too busy as it is then a spec project seems pointless.
On the other hand, if you’re looking for work, a spec project could be a great way to attract clients. The best spec projects are usually projects done for yourself. You can add the project to your portfolio and it’s usually a lot funner then work you would do for someone …
Because today is Naked Day. As part of Dustin Diaz’s annual Naked Day I have removed all CSS styling from the site just for a day. Still confused? That’s ok… you should be. Just check back tomorrow for a more normal looking site.