My old friend James Serra asks about what we’ve done where we weren’t sure that things would work out.
I’m sure you know I’m a business owner. I’ve had my company since 2008. Sure, there have been ups and downs over that time, but in general it’s been good. We take on clients who want our services, but also try to maintain a level of flexibility with our time so that we can be responsive to whatever happens. Even if I’m spending most days at a particular client, I try to make sure I can respond to other things. Because just like how an employee might get sick, another client might have an urgent issue and I like to be able to respond. I like to be able to pause what I’m doing if necessary. Maybe this is to avoid risk, by not feeling like I have all my eggs in one basket. But maybe it increases the risk, because I’m less inclined to take on long-term full-time contracts.
Before I had the business, things were different. I craved stability, and I’m sure my career suffered for it.
I finished my university time in Melbourne at the very end of 1997. I’d had jobs as a research assistant in each of the three faculties I got degrees from, and it all wound up on New Year’s Eve at the end of 1997. I handed in my last pieces of work and after the long weekend I started working as a consultant, in a job that I had been offered six months earlier. I turned down the offer of a PhD for the stability of a wage.
In 2000, we moved to the UK with our two sons, and that felt risky. When we arrived I did not have a job to step into, but within a week I was deciding which of two I would take. Both were permanent positions – I was still risk-averse. I didn’t want to go contracting. I didn’t back myself enough. Financially, I could’ve made better choices, but I had a young family, and money has never been a goal. In 2002 we moved to Adelaide (where my wife grew up), and I still wanted permanent roles.
It took more than ten years of working in permanent positions (’98 to ’08) for me to take the career risk of starting my own company.
Someone called me an entrepreneur recently. I disagreed with them. I’ve never sought funding from anywhere. I’ve never tried to build up a company to sell it. I’ve always pushed against hiring a salesperson and never had anyone in the company with a sales-related title.
What I have done is lean into the community. I’ve done work for charities for little or no revenue – I even remember charging a client less than the hourly rate I was paying a subcontractor to do the work. And I’ve volunteered my time (and that of my employees) to work among the data community, running events, speaking at conferences, helping community members with what they need, even sometimes people who would consider us competition. And I’ve tried to listen to what God is saying. That’s been hard a lot of the time, but I try.
Is that a career risk? Sure – community work is definitely a risk. It would be better for me to focus on the bottom line and limit how much we do that isn’t tied directly to revenue. Community work is not how people are supposed to run a business. I’m in a group for business leaders and I know that I’m not the same as most of the others there.
This stretches to other parts of my life as well. In the comedy community, I’m hoping to start another open mic room again (I ran one in May/June last year before the venue closed). And I’m not running it to make money – I’m doing it to provide more options for local comedians. People need stage time to improve, and I can help with that. That might help me improve as a comedian too, but that’s not it. There is a need for more open mic space in Adelaide, and I think I can help. Is that a risk? Nah – it’s not taking anything away from my livelihood. But people have called me “commercially naïve” because of it.
Like I wrote further up – I’m not an entrepreneur. I’m good at helping other people solve their stuff, which makes me a good consultant. But running my own company still feels like a career risk to me. At the end of the day though, I like that my company reflects who I am, and I think the bigger risk would be for me to be someone I’m not.
@robfarley.com@bluesky (previously @rob_farley@twitter)
