## What I Love About My Life/Work 1. Freedom on where I work from 2. Outcomes based payment 3. Ability to sandbox new ideas for testing 4. Ample opportunities to meet and connect with cool people 5. I have total control over my budget, hiring and team 6. I get to make content that people enjoy (and they tell me!) I expect to trade some of 5, 3, and 2 so that I can spend more of my time on 4 and 6. ## What I Don't Love About My Life/Work 1. I don't have a team of peers, I have subordinates (It's lonely at the top) 2. Most mentorship or growth opportunities require me to pay for them if I'm an entrepreneur (coaching, memberships, etc) 3. 100% outcome based payment means that my income declines if I'm not seeking new opportunities 4. I feel obligated to promote my work side in interviews and media because my lead gen is so digitally focused - I'd like to just go talk on a podcast for once 5. I have total responsibility for my budget, hiring, and team ## My Experience In Teams The first time I went to college, I worked as an intern at a bank and apprenticed in kitchens. Scanning papers at my internship gave me time to learn stocks and write Excel scripts to automate my data entry roles. But being on the line during dinner hour teaches you a lot about teamwork under pressure. You do what has to be done. My big win came while running a portfolio with friends when we won a short squeeze on a long/long trading pair: KNDI and TSLA I dropped out after my sophomore year to go to a coding bootcamp. Alumnify recruited me to become their pre-seed "CTO" - a position for which I (with only 5 months as a coder) was woefully under experienced. After we raised that seed round, I became COO instead. I managed my first remote development teams with Alumnify - both overseas in Asia. Startup life was an ultra valuable, but not very fun experience in hindsight. I was working with a CEO that almost never listened to my advice. At the time, I didn't realize he was playing a totally different game than the one I thought. After that, I wasn't sure I would really want to work for someone again. I gave it a try when a venture firm (studio, RE, VC) asked me to help with a coding bootcamp of their own. After 6 strategic plans and 4 months of spinning in my desk chair, everything clarified during a meeting with the senior partner... It was clear he didn't want to expand the technology portion of the firm anymore. It turned out the other partner already blown through the tech fund on bad bets. The firm dissolved a few months later. I started consulting about 2 months before I gave notice. Since then strategy & operations consulting around technology, B2B growth, and remote teams has been my main gig. On the side, I started [[GotAudio#A Brief History Of Call for Content | Call For Content]] - which grew over the next few years from a side hustle to get free coaching into my primary business. At CFC I lead the team (up to 12) for the first ~3 years. After that, I brought in a GM and started to look in new directions with automation, NoCode, and the solopreneur/creator lifestyle. When my GM got in a car accident at the end of 2020, I accelerated plans to sell CFC and started selling off my team with parts of the book of the business. ## Keys to my dream role * Upside potential (outcome based payment) * Restricted zone of control, but high level of operational & executional freedom * Work with a team of people way smarter/more talented/better than me * Creativity or problem solving required * Able to spend stretches of time working on my own * Remote or location flexible * Allowed to have a side hustle OR pays enough I don't want one * In media, the business of businesses, network/community, or knowledge ## Jobs I'd Like To Hold In The Near Future I doubt I'll get to have them all, but I'd love to have each of these jobs for at least a few months - if not years - in my life. ### Club/Community Manager Being the manager of a country club seems like one of the most fun jobs you could have (except for the complaints and berating by members). I'd love to try my hand at that or a similar role. The ideal would be to do this for some sort of private club for entrepreneurs, MI and the B8F play were a direct attempt at that. ### Chief of Staff, Consigliere, or Right Hand for a 9 figure+ Entrepreneur Working for a single person/entity directly. I want someone who wants to be (or is) BIG though. ### Digital Archivist I love Obsidian, interviewing people, and thinking/linking concepts. If I could help people build out their second brains, then develop systems to use and amplify them, that would super cool! ### Head of Content or Marketing for a High Growth Org ~~This would give me a chance to really prove my marketing/content chops. I think I'd be better suited for working in PE, VC, or family office doing this than a backed startup though. My skills in personal branding/authority play better there.~~ *Update, this is close enough to what I did at Gateway X. Not a perfect match, but I still don't consider myself a marketer anymore. The copy/creative side is too important to win without it and it is not my zone of genius.* ### Remote Operations Architect (systems engineer for digital business operations) Building systems for businesses is a lot of what I do now, but if I could help architect their entire ecosystem we could see much better returns. The systems mindset is key to growth, but undervalued when priorities rear their head. *Update, this is what I currently do at 3rd Brain.* ### Digital Talent Agent for intellectual, B2B, and niche industry creators ~~So much opportunity in the creator economy needs to be unlocked for us to move to the next digital economic revolution.~~ *Update, I tried this with small creators and did not enjoy it much at all. The money was poor and they were often unable or uninterested in making the required improvements for real success* ### EIR, In-House Strategist, or Innovation for a business of businesses company (PE, VC, Accelerator, Family Office) This just sounds like the most fun job in the world. Creativity + resources + risk appetite + private = awesome ### Digital M&A Specialist Similar thinking as above, but at a brokerage or advisory with more emphasis on variety of deals rather than resource access. ### Strategic Advisor to Serial Entrepreneurs I've done a bit of this for friends (a couple clients too), and really enjoy it. It's slow growth and I'm not qualified to charge big bucks yet though. ### Fund Manager/Partner (MicroPE, Digital PE, Rollup, or SBIC) Business of businesses at scale. I think I'll feel confident here sometime in my mid/late 30s once I have some more direct experience. ### School Founder This is my late stage play (50+). Start a school. See [[GOTBook/5. This Stuff Didn't Make The Cut/Redesigning Higher Ed]] for my starting point. I plan to take this role to develop a true business school.