I write this now, to capture and understand exactly what I feel. I’ll likely feel better tomorrow, today is an exercise of allowing myself to feel deeply and getting perspective. These posts are often emotionally driven, and its conclusion often comes as a surprise to myself.

Initially, I was going to write three separate blog posts. One on my experiences of hiring and employing people. Another on developing and selling your own product and a last one on consulting.
These were the three threads I was pulling over the last year, all the while a pandemic thread was pulling me back. My adventure turned sour very quickly. The buffer was shrinking and within a very small amount of time you find yourself in survival mode, rather than thriving mode.

Writing this feels very personal. I’ve felt paralysed for the past couple months. I’d appreciate hearing your insights if you have constructive ones. Though I still stand by my ideals, they’ve gotten a good beating. If you can help heal them, please reach out.

A Short Timeline

2019, December.
My project had been downright unrespectful and shady towards me. I decided to end the project and not start another anytime soon. I had a good buffer to support this decision and wanted to go on a business adventure.

I hired a seasoned event manager who I’d have worked with before. She and I wanted to organise events on Diversity and Inclusion in IT across Europe.

2020, March
I had just hired a junior developer who showed lots of potential. That brought us to 4 people, as there was one senior consultant that was already working with me for a year before.

Shortly after, the first lockdown went in effect. Within this hostile market, we started building a product called RiskStormingOnline, which is a collaboration tool for risk analysis. This was a successful workshop before the pandemic and it made sense to invest the idle time to make it possible to run it remotely.

At the same time, we decided to cancel all 4 Diversity and Inclusion events and run an experimental online event in September.

As time went by and funds slowly lessening, pressure to get back into the consulting game rose. Finding a project during these times proved to be a challenge.

I found myself taking care of people’s financial position, mental health, safety… while maintaining my own sanity.

2020, November
We survived.
After several unsuccessful interview trajectories, I finally found a new project as a consultant and would turn our steady monthly loss into a steady profit again.
The event in September was well organised, interesting and professional. If only more people had turned up.

The seasoned event manager was at a loss, as her whole career suddenly felt irrelevant. She decided to re-school herself to Product Owner, then Scrum Master.

The junior dev had been on a short project for 3 months, though that was ending soon.

2021, July.
Today. The seasoned event manager called me up this morning that she was going to accept a job at a different firm.
The junior dev had done the same two months ago.
RiskStormingOnline didn’t take as many steps forward as I had wanted. It feels stagnant and I don’t have the people to move it forward.
There’s two of us again. Both doing what we know, consultancy.

Hope

If I look at the aftermath of this whole situation on facts alone, I see that we’re back at where we were two years ago. We’ve managed to create a financial crater and then crawl out of it. We’re back, but we’ve lost two years.
That’s sour, but it could’ve been much worse.

Emotionally, I’ve taken regular beatings, most of them didn’t come as a surprise. I was just waiting to get this final one.
I feel like I stood at the forefront, working hard to move forward with only small wins to show, all the while creating stability for my people. I’ve worked hard during a whole year, regularly stepping out of my comfort zone, taking on roles I had never done before. Understandably, people’s patience run out and they look to improve their own situation.

Falling down, not staying down.

– Pearl Jam, Dance of the Clairvoyants

I am writing this to acknowledge to myself that I had a difficult time, that I feel I have failed in my business attempts. I have nothing to show for a year of hard work. I suspect most people would see this as failure. That’s my experience too.
On the other hand, I need to realise that due to these efforts, at least two people and their families will be forever changed. We survived a very difficult time together. Even though we are on different paths now and we might not appreciate the circumstances that befell us, we’ll think fondly of the people that we weathered the storm with.

Concluding, I uncovered this silver lining: I’ve helped people through my business. One aspect failed, another aspect did well. Only now I understand what a good friend had already told me.

I must lick my wounds and find the strength again to trust my idealism. I need time.

Failure is only truly failure if nothing is learned. What feels devastating right now, will be an opportunity in the future.

People who follow my journey somewhat may know that at the beginning of 2018 I decided to break with a great many things and journey onwards. Up until recently, the road (business-wise) has been mainly littered with proverbial candy. Now, in what seems to be a resurgence of the global pandemic, a first real threat to the business has been culminating and will likely continue to do so. This blogpost will give you insight in my thought process and feelings of the past couple of months and what we’ve been doing so far.

The months, even years, that happened before the lockdown now feel like they were preparations for today. The moneybuffer the business amased, the hires, the projects, all of it suddenly shifted from ‘business as usual’ to ‘how is this helping us to survive?’. Let me shed some lights on the cards we’re holding.

Some Dreadful Things

Just before the lockdown, I hired two new people. Joanna is a seasoned event organiser, Aline a junior front end developer. The third employee, Geert, has had a good contract at a customer in media for some time and continues to do so. So steady income from one, while three (including me) are currently costing. We can see a slow decline in our moneybuffer monthly.

You can imagine that events got cancelled overal and it’s extremely difficult to find projects for juniors in such a market. Finding a project for myself at a reasonable rate seems to be difficult too.

For four months, we’ve been trying to find projects for either me or Aline, the front end developer, with no avail. This has been frustrating and stressful to say the least. Please realise that this includes: Countless times of ‘not hearing back’, doing interviews with no feedback or answer, being disappointed on a daily basis. This is difficult for me, but also impacts the morale Aline, who may start feeling like a burden rather than an asset.

Another aspect we face is that ITMatters.pl events were planned, but uncertain. For some weeks we were hopeful to organise them in a safe way. However, now we decided to hold only one event online. These experiences are rollercoasters in a time that one wishes stability.

Some Hopeful Things

Because we have a small organisation that values transparancy and communication I can truly feel everyone engaged to make the best out of this situation. They’re thinking, even to their own disadvantange, about ways to help the business forward. I can feel that they love being part of this. That they subscribe to this ideology. That they want this company to succeed.
This is probably the single proudest achievement for me.

We have a good buffer that will last us some time longer even though I can see that number declining slightly month after month.
I can see Geert taking his responsibility to continuously work and bring in the baseline which we need.
Joanna is using her strengths to enlist people to her cause. ITMatters.pl has had some major setbacks, yet she’s building a flame that is growing brighter day by day.

Aline and I? We’re building something I’m very hopeful for: RiskStormingOnline.com.
She’s shown incredible motivation and aptitude in digitalising this workshop which I feel can help so, so many software projects. We’ve been able to recruit the help of several more experienced people to help us get to something marketable quicker. Check out the beta version here: riskstorming.praxio.be

This Is Not a Cry For Help

This is a window into my head, do with that what you will. As an employer, you take the risk. You reap the profits when things go well and you carry the risks when they don’t. That’s the simple truth.

The complexity behind it, the feelings and many events contributing to your state of mind are much less obvious. There’s the great pressure of having people relying on the company for their income. It’s both a (self inflicted) blessing and burden.
Another challenge is the daily planning for an uncertain future and hoping you’re making the right choices. There’s a constant influx of trade-offs to be made.

Should I invest time to find Aline a project, or make sure she can focus on RiskStormingOnline.com?
Should I accept a less-paying job for myself, getting some extra money, but having less time for others, possibly burning myself out?
Should I put all my eggs in the RiskStorming-basket?
How much more time do we have in this ‘normal market’ until the pandemic hits again?
Do I ask people to go temporarily unemployed and save some money while leaving people in the cold?

These are a few of many considerations that I’ve had to deal with once, multiple times or even daily. All the while, checking in with people around me.
These same people, whom I respect and love, often second guess my decisions. They shake my convictions. They give me hope, but they don’t take it easy on me.

In the future, I may regret some decisions I’ve taken these days. However, I’ve learned a great deal of what it means to run a business during ‘good times’ in preparation of ‘bad times’. I’ve learned to treat advice for what it is: Glorified experiences. Very little people have dealt with running a company like mine, with its values and ideology in a global pandemic situation.

Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.
– Baz Luhrman, Everybody’s free

We’re doing well. We could use some more good news here and there, but all in all, our foundations are steady and we’re building towards the future.

 

The world is undergoing an interesting transition. People being isolated. Negative economic impact. Personal stress, anxiety and financial harships. This is a time that will shape our future in ways we can’t quite imagine. On the other hand there are many positive initiatives rising up on social media. People offering help to the weaker. Companies taking up their social responsibilities and large scale empathy.

Challenging, interesting, worrying.

“Worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing Bubble gum”
– Baz Luhrmann

 

Over the past two years my company grew from a one-man-show to a micro-organisation of four. This corona virus situation is also the first real threat to our business since its conception. It’s the first time our company, our values and people are under fire. This post explores several experiences I’ve had in the past days and dealt with in my personal way.

No Secrets, Fairness

The spread of the virus is fast. Very fast. Yet in human time, a couple of weeks, days even seem long when you’re right in the middle of them. We had just hired our fourth team-member and were looking forward to Test Bash Brighton, an event that which would be a milestone for us. As the days unfurled, the certainty it would be cancelled and the questions of personal safety & planning grew unbearably.

When the event was finally cancelled, it was a trigger, at least for me.
I shared to the team an explanation of our financial situation. That it is stable enough for none of them to worry about their jobs at least for several months. The priority is each of our health, both physically and mentally. Daily, we check up on each other.

Because we are a fully transparent company, they know exactly what kind of money we have on the bank, what’s coming in and going out. I gave it to them straight, as I always have. I enjoy the conversations, the ideas and discussions we have and the mutual understanding it brings.

Stability & People over Greed

People approached me with suggestions to cut their personal wages by a third or even half. They felt they could make do with less and help the company survive longer with these sacrifices.
I refused.
When we started working together we signed a contract. But much more than that contract, I made a pledge to them, that as long as they are comitted to the survival of the company, the company will support them back. If I can not pay them what they were promised in times of trouble I will have failed them miserably.

Maybe I’m too idealistic and/or I’m unaware of my privilege, but when I read that big companies are cutting down wages or forcing unpaid leave I get very angry. Paying people what they are promised is the absolute bare minimum an employer is obligated to do. It may be easy for a small company to point fingers, but in my opinion these things scale. If you’re in trouble within weeks of a crisis, you’ve been consistently taking too many risks, no matter how big or small you are.

Move Forward

Several things aren’t great for the company. We have just hired a new junior, who’s awesome by the way, but who would now need to find a project in a more challenging market. I’ve not been on a project for three months and one of the teammembers told me to get a project to help out with the financial situation. I love the fact that he felt empowered enough to tell his employer to step up his game. I applaud him for it. (If you have need for an experienced remote working Quality Coach/Product Owner or a junior Tester/Front-end Developer, get in touch!)
On top of this, we’re organising three events for ITMatters.pl this year which face uncertainty whether they’ll happen in the first place. Sponsorship is harder to come by, speakers are more anxious to sign up for new gigs, not to mention finding participants. Finding business is harder, but let’s not let that stop us.

After explaining the team our financially stable situation, that they will keep getting their montly wages and their focus now is on their physical and mental health, the last message to them is to be brave. Adapt if necessary, but keep your projects going forward.

My Learnings

Deliberate exploring leads to new insights. I see this whole new situation as a chance to understand myself a bit better, what I want to stand for and what I want my company to be. I’m looking for vocabulary to put under words the ideology that is behind Isle of IT, but I haven’t found anything academic or helpful yet.

So in my own words:
I imagine a company of 6 people in total, not more. People who’s responsibility is the sustainability of the company and their own selffulfillment. A place that is fully transparent, fair, open-minded and progressive. Where people listen to each other, more than they speak. Where everyone’s peculiarities, skills, quirks and special powers are valued and openly appreciated. If you still think this is too fluffy and not competitive business-wise, I’m happy to have a chat with you.

I personally think this is the future. That more people will become fed up with the powerlust, greed and fear that governs many big companies and that they’ll build their own micro-businesses that feel more like a family than a machine.

It certainly is a future I’m building for my own and those who want to be part of my family.