First off, transition isn’t really the right word. I’ve always believed in shock therapy to build personal resiliency to change. I’ve changed jobs and moved locations every year since graduation (and threw in month-long trips abroad in between each change). But leaving my management job at AT&T and starting my own education company is a big shock to the career system. And becoming location independent — I’m on permanent travel and live out of a suitcase– creates a completely different lifestyle than simply moving across the country.
I just wanted to quickly check in with everyone and let everyone know how I’m doing. Overall, I’m doing well. But I will admit that startup life and location independence are not easy — at least not when starting out. So here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly of my current endeavors:
The Good – Five best things of startup life & location independence:
1. I get to see friends, family, and others who I normally would not see. It’s been extremely nice hanging out with friends in other cities who I have not seen for a long time. It’s also been nice spending time with my grandma and relatives as well as some other special people in my life. The world becomes much smaller with location independence and distance can be easily managed.
2. I get to set my own location and schedule. Specifically, I get to be in whatever city I want to be whenever I want to be (except when I “need” to be at a conference for marketing purposes). I have this newfound freedom where I can work from anywhere I desire.
3. I finally get to put my passions to work. I get to focus on the business all day and it’s much more stimulating intellectually and emotionally than when I was working on it part-time. I work till 6am sometimes but I love it because I truly care about it and believe in it. I’d rather passionately work late nights than have to look for the clock to hit 5pm every day. I also get to spend more time in the field (conferences and classrooms) which means I get to meet more customers (students and teachers), and it’s just great to hear the positive feedback that they provide once they finally get to meet me — or see how big of a fan they are which makes me feel like a rock star.
4. I have newfound appreciation for the East Coast. It’s so much nicer when I can slow down and enjoy exploring new cities — and getting around between them — on my own terms. Baltimore is prettier than I remembered, and Fredericksburg, Virginia, is a great town. I can get around Boston and New York City like locals now and I probably play the part too seeing how I’ve given directions in both cities. I already knew about Megabus and Boltbus but now I’ve also discovered commuter trains like the LIRR, Metro North, NJ Transit, MARC, and VRE which makes me feel like I have access to a whole new world of transportation.
5. I get crash courses in new skills. Being around different friends all the time means rapid exposure to their passions and crash courses in picking up their expertise. I’ve learned so much about photography, relationships, exercise, music, life goals, and just how to generally enjoy life in different ways from hanging out with all my friends.
The Bad – Five things I miss from my old life:
6. Consistent Internet & cell phone service. I’m usually in search for a Starbucks for free Internet since the place I stay usually doesn’t have free Internet if it’s not a friend’s place, but sometimes I end up paying the $14/day Internet at hotels anyway when work runs after 10pm. AT&T cell phone service has its issues on the East Coast (static in Boston, no service in NYC, echoes in Baltimore). So who in AT&T can take care of my #firstworldproblems? ;)
7. Cooking & home-cooked meals. Sometimes I just want to take a break from eating out and be able to cook my own meal in my own kitchen.
8. Hanging out with a core group of friends. I miss being able to hang out with my friends in Atlanta. Because I saw them all the time, catching up wasn’t necessary and we could focus on doing random fun things in town.
9. The Routine and impromptu happy hours. Well, just a little bit. Sometimes it’s nice to have consistency in your day and not have to do intensive planning everyday. There’s also something nice and convenient about being able to IM co-workers to organize an impromptu happy hour compared to always having to schedule my social life sometimes days in advance.
10. Productivity. This is a challenge everyday, even for someone like me with the nickname GTDxtreme (Get Things Done Extreme). I lose productivity right off the bat when I’m traveling between cities or when I need to find Internet. The other challenge here is that work can easily creep in everyday since I’m on the same laptop all the time and I have to manage between productivity and having off days where I’m not working at all to prevent burnout.
The Ugly — Five biggest challenges:
11. No salary. It’s scary watching my bank account on Mint.com drop every week with no guaranteed cash flow coming in. Any bootstrapping entrepreneur really needs to manage their personal budget with rigorous discipline and have saved up a decent pile of cash to keep them surviving day-to-day and to prevent themselves from freaking out and taking drastic actions.
12. Failing. Since income is now tied to how much revenue the startup produces, the consequences from failure really impact me. For example, our September product launch didn’t generate the revenue we had projected and that failure meant I needed to survive without that money and figure out how to adjust immediately.
13. Unexpected (and expected) costs. New laptop because my old one died, car accident, shipping my car cross-country, my own health insurance, random last-minute hotels, etc. All these costs could not have come at a worse time and it made a huge dent into my starting savings. You can manage risk and budgets well but sometimes you just can’t prepare for everything.
14. Maintaining healthy practices. It’s very easy to slide into unhealthy practices when you’re always on the road and working on a startup. From eating out all the time and drinking Starbucks fraps to not getting enough exercise and working until 6am, there are many bad habits that need to be regulated. Hopefully I can do a better job at maintaining a healthy lifestyle while I’m on the road and not take my health for granted.
15. The need to constantly plan for the next destination. It’s impossible to plan 12 weeks of consecutive travel so I have to plan basically several times a week. That’s fine since I’ve learned how to do that from traveling, but the biggest challenge is that it makes it difficult to enjoy the current destination. And location independence should be about enjoying the destination in addition to the journey.
The overall lesson here is that even dreams have growing pains. But I know it will get better. I took a break from my work travels to visit friends in Baltimore and Fredericksburg and I feel much more refreshed. When you’re going through your own growing pains, just remember to take a step back, breathe, and remember that it’ll be okay and it’ll be worth it in the end. Keep calm and carry on!
