Not for the first time I find myself in the position of being “between startups”. I’m happy, which for some might be surprising, as I’m really keen to push into new areas and explore more about what life has to offer.
“There’s no better way to overpower a trickle of doubt than with a flood of naked truth” – Frank Underwood
While exploring the question about “what’s next?”, I need a contracting role. While I don’t see contracting as being a long term activity, I need to be realistic about paying rent etc. Contracting has the added bonus of being a great way to work with other companies and people.
My coding background is a combination of C#, Ruby and NodeJS but the team and projects are far more important to me than the technical stack. A role focusing on products would be great but not essential, if it involved non-coding aspects then even better! I’m passionate about coding but a break is something welcomed. I’ve worked with mobile before and while I wouldn’t call myself a guru I would relish the opportunity to explore this in greater detail. London works for me but I would love to see other places! I am honestly open to suggestions! If you would like to chat then Twitter (@Ben_Hall) or Email ([email protected]) are best.
“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” ― Winston Churchill
If I’m contracting and have somewhere nice to stay then I want to use this opportunity to do something good and help other startups. Rob Ashton was 100% committed to this and you have to admire his approach to life. I’ll cover this in more depth in a future post but I definitely want to start giving back and providing more help where I can. I used to love helping others but recently I haven’t created the opportunity to do so. If you fancy breakfast or a coffee then let me know. Alternatively chances are you’ll see me at events like Silicon Drinkabout where we can chat over a beer.
“It’s so refreshing to work with someone who’ll throw a saddle on a gift horse rather than look it in the mouth.” – Frank Underwood
While I’m not sure 100% sure what I’m working on next, the one thing I am sure about is that I’m grateful for the opportunities given to me by the previous companies and the people I’ve worked with such as Red Gate, 7digital, Springboard (especially @jd and @jessinblue as they helped me make the big jump into startup life), Swapit/SuperAwesome and 1seed.
With that, it’s time to open a new moleskin notebook, grab a new pen and start the next chapter. While waiting for a contract I have some ideas in the pipeline that I want to explore, experiment and in/validate. If you’re interested in hearing more then subscribe to the mailing list below.