In this episode, we dive into a couple of essential concepts brought up by Nate Bosher in our previous conversation: knowing when to quit a project and the benefits of consulting. Using examples from past startups like Winsitter and current projects such as Multithreaded Income, we discuss the struggle of knowing when to terminate a project that isn't proving fruitful. Further, we look into the benefits of consulting, from gaining a diverse skill set to buying personal time for your passion projects. Finally, we touch upon the freedom and control of being a consultant or a freelancer. What would you do with 100% control of your time? Join us on this episode, and let's explore together.
Creators & Guests
What is Multithreaded Income Podcast?
In the "Multithreaded Income Podcast," host Kevin Griffin navigates the nuanced landscape of generating multiple income streams as a technologist. Aimed at professionals who wish to diversify their revenue while maintaining a focus on technology, this podcast dives deep into unconventional strategies, untapped opportunities, and actionable advice.
Kevin Griffin: everyone
has commentary time.
Hopefully you've had an opportunity to
listen to the previous episode with my
friend Nate Bosher and I want to touch
on a couple of the topics that Nate
brought up during that conversation that
I think are really important to reiterate.
The.
First big one.
And we're going to talk about this
just for a couple of minutes is knowing
when to pull the plug on a project.
And I think this is a big one
for a lot of us, me as well.
Is when do you pull the plug on a project?
And I want to start this whole
conversation with projects where I
didn't know when the pull the plug.
So a long time ago.
Year 2013.
20 14, 20 15, around that time.
I was working on a startup.
It was called the wind.
Sitter in, um, myself in a
very good friend of mine.
Brett Fisher, who was a
previous guest on the show.
We were working on the startup.
That we were building topper
to help CIS ministers manage
windows, servers, and production.
And this is kind of at the
onset of the cloud everywhere.
Everyone moving to the cloud,
moving everything to the cloud.
And.
It was a really solid idea, but
bread and I really had difficulty.
Marketing it and figuring out who
we are going to try to sell it to.
And every time Brett and I
would get together as area.
What's the next thing we need to work on.
And the answer all the
time was always marketing.
We needed to work on marketing, but
we didn't want to work on marketing.
We wanted to work on the technical
problems like, oh, I could go add
another feature that does X, Y, and Z.
And it's easy for us as developers to
dive in and solve the technical problems,
but we really don't want to solve the
problems that we should be working on.
To bring this back to the
point, working on wind sitter.
Day after day after day.
And we did this for months
and months turned into years.
And.
Bread.
And I would always get together
and go, you know, is this.
Is this done?
Like, should we just shut this down?
We have a handful of paying customers.
There's money coming in, but it's not.
What people would call F-you money.
Like there's no quitting your job.
There's no quitting.
You're.
Your livelihood to go
all in on that product.
And we let this go on way too long.
Do eventually.
Two years probably after we
should have pulled the plug.
Brett and I had the.
Conversation.
Should we pull the plug on this and go
work on something different for a change.
And the answer that was yes.
Yeah.
We had to go.
Work on something else.
So we didn't finish that.
When we shut up and.
Yeah, lessons learned.
So let's bring that to the future.
Into the current to the present
and I'm working on multithreaded
income with my very good friends.
Sean Marin and Chad Carter.
Uh, we have this vision of
being able to help developers.
Figure out how to insure
themselves against.
Future job loss.
How do you build multiple
threads of income?
So you're never looking for.
A job at the wrong moment, your don't
ever find yourself at a point where
you don't have income from any source.
You are a super talented person.
Why don't you.
Take that talent and go
do something with it.
And.
Hopefully we're, we're helping you.
If you're been listening to the show.
But multithreaded income is.
Time-boxed.
Because while I love helping people,
there has to be individual point
where this entity makes some money and
we have a variety of different ways
that we're planning on doing that.
We're having that hard conversation.
When is the point with multithreaded
income that we pull the plug.
So you're listening to this episode.
Uh, at whatever time, but I'm
recording it on November 15th, 2023.
And there is a time box that says when
we get to February of 20, 24, A couple
of hard decisions going to have be made.
If we haven't made significant progress.
In.
Bringing in dollars into the business.
It is fun.
To work on things.
I love working on side projects, but.
Dedicating.
An extravagant amount of
your time to OSI project.
That's not producing any fruits.
Is.
Sometimes not.
Time, well spent.
Uh, so multithreaded
income coming back to this.
I love doing multithreaded income.
I love the people I interview.
I love the people out in the
community that I'm talking to.
And I'm learning from,
and I'm helping teach.
That all brings me joy.
But there are a considerable number of
things in this life that bring me joy.
So if I found myself in the next
three, four months, and I know
Sean, Chadfill the exact same way.
If we find ourselves in this
position where a multi-threaded
income is taking up time.
But it's not producing the end result.
The return on investment.
Which is money.
We need to cut that out of our lives.
So coming back to the Nate conversation,
Nate really touched on this and like,
let's make sure that when we're evaluating
different things that we're doing.
That we have outs.
We know when.
Enough is enough.
We have done what we could with
a project and don't be afraid to
say no, like, no, it was the most.
Powerful word you can
possibly use in your career.
Feel free to say no to things.
There's a famous saying somewhere.
And I don't remember what it's from.
I've heard it in 15,000
different contexts.
But when you are evaluating
anything in your life, If it's not.
Uh, hell yes, it needs to be a no.
So at the moment multi-threaded
income, this is how, yes.
I love doing this.
Let's talk more about making.
Developers financially independence.
And.
Yeah, let's talk more about that.
So if I'm still around in March, you
know, that something has succeeded.
If I'm not, you know, it's
failed, but that's because we
probably time box the experiments.
To, to move on.
The next topic that Nate touched on that
I think is worth talking a little bit
more is around the concept of consulting.
So I'm a consultant.
Uh, Chad to consultant and
Sean's doing consulting as well.
Um, a lot of you out there are
probably thinking about I'm
getting, looking forward to getting
into independent consulting.
I want to start freelancing.
I want to start doing
this work on the side.
And I, 100% thing, everyone should do a
little bit of freelancing on the side.
Uh, just to get some breadth of skillset.
The biggest benefit that consulting
is primarily you work with a variety
of different clients and customers.
And they all have different problems
and they're all different people.
So you don't get siloed into working with
a particular team in a particular way.
Because no two companies
operate in the exact same way.
Uh, I've worked with everything from
military to fortune 50 companies to little
mom and pop shops, and they all have a.
Different way of thinking about
businesses and how different folks
in the business should operate.
So it's good for you to just kind
of work with different people
and build up that skillset.
Now on top of that, you might pick
up additional skills and tech that
you might not necessarily had before.
So spend some time and do a
little bit of freelancing.
I love how Nate uses.
Consulting though, because
ultimately like, Nate, once you
use consulting, just the fund.
His future projects.
And I don't think this is a topic that
really anyone else on the show has,
has gone too deeply in is that you
are capable of buying your own time.
When.
I do consulting work.
I get paid for that and I take that
money and I put it into a bank account.
It's used to pay for the things
that I pay for, but I could also
use a little bit of that money to
pay for by Tom and other projects.
For example, if I had a product
idea, a SAS that I wanted to work on.
I could easily pay myself to work on that.
By not taking consulting work.
But just kind of eating into
the coffers of the consulting
work that I'd done previously.
That's exactly what Nate does.
He does enough consulting.
To fund the product work
that he wants to do.
And he has really a cool concept.
For anyone out there.
Your working on.
Your day job.
You started doing some
freelancing on the side.
You're gonna start
building those coffers up.
And eventually you get to the
point where maybe the freelancing
of the consulting takes over and
that can become your full-time job.
Well, now you can say that to science
are working out something else.
Going back to my previous
conversation about when sitter,
when I was doing wind sitter.
I basically funded the winds
that are time with consulting
time that I had on the side.
So 80% of my time is consulting.
And then 20% of my time with.
When sitter.
It leads into another big thing
that I think Nate was hitting on.
Is that.
Eventually as.
A consultant or a freelancer or a product.
Producer.
You have 100%.
Control.
Over your time.
When.
When do you wake up?
When do you go to your computer?
When do you take a break?
Do you want to take a long lunch?
Do you want to go out
to coffee with someone?
These are all things that you can't
really easily do when you're working
a W2 full-time job, you don't have
full control over your schedule.
At least not as much as you might want.
Uh, I just got back from a business
retreat with a group of friends in.
Uh, Austin, Texas.
And I just took a couple days off.
And what I did was I told my
clients, I was working with.
But Hey, just quick FYI.
I'm not going to be available
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
I'll check slack periodically.
But I'm not going to be productive,
nothing getting done that week.
Take care and I'll see
you when I get back.
That's the type of control over my time.
I want.
, I want to be able to go to
kids' baseball games or.
Any event that they have
going on, I can do that.
I don't have to ask permission.
I just go do it.
It's this kind of holy grail of, I
can do literally whatever I want.
Now the downside of like cases is
if I'm not working, I'm not making
money, but I can selectively choose.
When those times are.
If I don't want to work past
three o'clock in the afternoon.
I don't work past three
o'clock in the afternoon.
It's completely up to
me to control my time.
100%.
So I'm going to put out a question to.
The multithreaded income community.
How.
Would you like it?
If you could control 100% of your
time, what would you do differently?
And how can the multi-threaded
income community help you?
By achieving some of those goals.
So, thank you all so much for hanging out
with me today and I'll see you on next.
Week's up.
So.