November 26, 2010 at 20:39From a frog to a prince or from an IT-employee to entrepreneurs
Most recently, I changed my status from an ordinary programmer to an entrepreneur. Exactly a year ago, I spent my last day working in a company (it was in Jordan), since then I have gone from freelancer to director of a small company.
I think my experience will be all the more useful because it is still very fresh in my head, which means it can also help someone make a quantum leap in both lifestyle and income.
Until the moment when I decided that I would become a freelancer, and later the director of the company, I worked for two years in a Ukrainian-Slovenian company with embedded-systems, and later half a year as a web-developer in a Jordanian company. Despite my abilities and creativity, I was a rather weak programmer, since 8 hours of daily work in one place demotivated me. My colleagues told me directly that I am not very similar to a programmer in my character set. Then I was even a little upset by this.
In the interval between the work, I worked at the AIESEC youth organization, in which social projects are quite well established in the form of business processes. There I got the first real experience of working in a team, planning and implementing projects, working in a critical situation. As a programmer, I didn’t come across this very much.
Having gone on an IT internship (again from AIESEC) to Jordan, I not only lived for six months in a mysterious country, but also learned new technologies for myself. Returning back to Ukraine, I still had Jordanian customers and new ones appeared. There were more and more orders, and I realized that I could find people, train them with technologies and already have some kind of business. This is exactly what happened, of course, far from everything is as smooth as we would like.
Most recently, I hired a salesperson and now I have a full-fledged and, as I would like to think, promising team. My immediate goal is to turn this business into passive income with minimal investment of time. This will allow you to pay attention to strategic development and other types of businesses that are not related to outsource.
Now I want to pay attention to the necessary things that helped me along the way. This may well be useful to anyone who follows a similar path:
Leadership and managerial experience.At one training, I heard: “Responsibility is equal to strength. The more responsibility we take, the stronger we become. ” Then it was strange and not clear to me. Now this is the most important principle on which my business and spiritual growth is based. Since then, I have been trying to be responsible for everything that comes across in my life - from social projects - to the status of headman in Chinese courses. If you see that somewhere there is an opportunity to manage or lead something, from cleaning, to organizing a corporate party, take on this. Try to set an example for others. This is very important both for creating your business, and for your advancement in your current job.
With whom you lead, you will be typed.You may have heard this proverb. Just as our parents did not want to see us in a street company with gopniks, just like all the people around us strongly influence our behavior and attitudes. If you want to become an entrepreneur, then communicating exclusively with ordinary IT people - it will be very difficult for you to do this. Over the past year, the circle of my contacts has changed a lot, and now I communicate mainly with entrepreneurs as well. And not at all because I was arrogant - we just have common views and a similar worldview.
Where to find entrepreneurs? In my city there is a club of entrepreneurs, the director of the plant, and just a very novice student, can join it. Congresses and weekly meetings are also organized there.
You can watch business TV channels (in Ukraine this is UBC) and go to trainings for entrepreneurs. It helped me that I entered the business community as an independent IT consultant. I started advising a new acquaintance of the entrepreneur - how they can use google-docs, CRM, project management systems - and they also helped with advice.
One of the known problems of IT-employees is isolation from basic business skills . To add business skills to IT skills, you need to learn from businessmen and / or fill in the bumps yourself. You should create a product or service that you agree to pay for.
The psychological background.Ideally, your company should have a balance of abilities, you need to look for a team of those who will compensate for your weaknesses. It’s cool for a classic IT employee to do business together with a successful salesperson or a marketing specialist.
Recruitment team. I found the whole team in different ways, but in all cases there was one thing - these people are nice to me (I have to spend a lot of time with them in the future), sensible and reliable. I read on the Internet how to conduct interviews, recalled how I went. If this is a development position - you can give a test homework without a deadline - and watch how people will do it. For a non-real estate position - this task may be a motivation letter.
The choice of direction.The main thing is that working with people in business (employees and customers) is fun. I try to choose both clients and employees that I like. Similarly, the subject of business. You should choose a niche (it would be desirable if it was new enough - for example, social networks or applications for mobile devices), study all the books (if necessary, you can not regret it and buy “fresh” from Amazon).
In general, the success of an enterprise in the IT sector (as, perhaps, in another field), in my opinion, depends primarily on “pumping” the following skills:
• self-organization (your habits become the foundation of the company: sometimes fortunately, sometimes unfortunately )
• ability to work with people (with customers and employees)
• leadership and managerial skills
• knowledge of technology (or have someone who understands next to it)
• the right choice of niche (there should be customers, but there are not so many contractors, or they are inferior in some way)
All skills, except the last one, can be pumped like in the workplace (if they allow) , and outside of it (volunteer, cultural or other activities).
The most important thing that I understood, while working on myself and on projects, is a long-known
truth: “the road will overpower the one who walks”. To change something - you need to take risks and leave the comfort zone.
I want to quote the classic (How Steel Was Tempered) as a conclusion:
The most precious thing in man is life. It is given to him once, and it is necessary to live it so that there is no excruciating pain for the years spent aimlessly, so that the shame for the petty and petty past does not burn, so that, dying, he could say: all life and all powers were given to the most beautiful in the world (....) And we must hurry to live. After all, an absurd illness or some tragic accident can interrupt it ...
I think my experience will be all the more useful because it is still very fresh in my head, which means it can also help someone make a quantum leap in both lifestyle and income.
Until the moment when I decided that I would become a freelancer, and later the director of the company, I worked for two years in a Ukrainian-Slovenian company with embedded-systems, and later half a year as a web-developer in a Jordanian company. Despite my abilities and creativity, I was a rather weak programmer, since 8 hours of daily work in one place demotivated me. My colleagues told me directly that I am not very similar to a programmer in my character set. Then I was even a little upset by this.
In the interval between the work, I worked at the AIESEC youth organization, in which social projects are quite well established in the form of business processes. There I got the first real experience of working in a team, planning and implementing projects, working in a critical situation. As a programmer, I didn’t come across this very much.
Having gone on an IT internship (again from AIESEC) to Jordan, I not only lived for six months in a mysterious country, but also learned new technologies for myself. Returning back to Ukraine, I still had Jordanian customers and new ones appeared. There were more and more orders, and I realized that I could find people, train them with technologies and already have some kind of business. This is exactly what happened, of course, far from everything is as smooth as we would like.
Most recently, I hired a salesperson and now I have a full-fledged and, as I would like to think, promising team. My immediate goal is to turn this business into passive income with minimal investment of time. This will allow you to pay attention to strategic development and other types of businesses that are not related to outsource.
Now I want to pay attention to the necessary things that helped me along the way. This may well be useful to anyone who follows a similar path:
Leadership and managerial experience.At one training, I heard: “Responsibility is equal to strength. The more responsibility we take, the stronger we become. ” Then it was strange and not clear to me. Now this is the most important principle on which my business and spiritual growth is based. Since then, I have been trying to be responsible for everything that comes across in my life - from social projects - to the status of headman in Chinese courses. If you see that somewhere there is an opportunity to manage or lead something, from cleaning, to organizing a corporate party, take on this. Try to set an example for others. This is very important both for creating your business, and for your advancement in your current job.
With whom you lead, you will be typed.You may have heard this proverb. Just as our parents did not want to see us in a street company with gopniks, just like all the people around us strongly influence our behavior and attitudes. If you want to become an entrepreneur, then communicating exclusively with ordinary IT people - it will be very difficult for you to do this. Over the past year, the circle of my contacts has changed a lot, and now I communicate mainly with entrepreneurs as well. And not at all because I was arrogant - we just have common views and a similar worldview.
Where to find entrepreneurs? In my city there is a club of entrepreneurs, the director of the plant, and just a very novice student, can join it. Congresses and weekly meetings are also organized there.
You can watch business TV channels (in Ukraine this is UBC) and go to trainings for entrepreneurs. It helped me that I entered the business community as an independent IT consultant. I started advising a new acquaintance of the entrepreneur - how they can use google-docs, CRM, project management systems - and they also helped with advice.
One of the known problems of IT-employees is isolation from basic business skills . To add business skills to IT skills, you need to learn from businessmen and / or fill in the bumps yourself. You should create a product or service that you agree to pay for.
The psychological background.Ideally, your company should have a balance of abilities, you need to look for a team of those who will compensate for your weaknesses. It’s cool for a classic IT employee to do business together with a successful salesperson or a marketing specialist.
Recruitment team. I found the whole team in different ways, but in all cases there was one thing - these people are nice to me (I have to spend a lot of time with them in the future), sensible and reliable. I read on the Internet how to conduct interviews, recalled how I went. If this is a development position - you can give a test homework without a deadline - and watch how people will do it. For a non-real estate position - this task may be a motivation letter.
The choice of direction.The main thing is that working with people in business (employees and customers) is fun. I try to choose both clients and employees that I like. Similarly, the subject of business. You should choose a niche (it would be desirable if it was new enough - for example, social networks or applications for mobile devices), study all the books (if necessary, you can not regret it and buy “fresh” from Amazon).
In general, the success of an enterprise in the IT sector (as, perhaps, in another field), in my opinion, depends primarily on “pumping” the following skills:
• self-organization (your habits become the foundation of the company: sometimes fortunately, sometimes unfortunately )
• ability to work with people (with customers and employees)
• leadership and managerial skills
• knowledge of technology (or have someone who understands next to it)
• the right choice of niche (there should be customers, but there are not so many contractors, or they are inferior in some way)
All skills, except the last one, can be pumped like in the workplace (if they allow) , and outside of it (volunteer, cultural or other activities).
The most important thing that I understood, while working on myself and on projects, is a long-known
truth: “the road will overpower the one who walks”. To change something - you need to take risks and leave the comfort zone.
I want to quote the classic (How Steel Was Tempered) as a conclusion:
The most precious thing in man is life. It is given to him once, and it is necessary to live it so that there is no excruciating pain for the years spent aimlessly, so that the shame for the petty and petty past does not burn, so that, dying, he could say: all life and all powers were given to the most beautiful in the world (....) And we must hurry to live. After all, an absurd illness or some tragic accident can interrupt it ...