It’s more impressive if someone quits their job to start a business. For me the decision was easy: I was unemployed. Also, trying to go back to what I did before gave me pain.
20 February 2023 • 2 min read
On 24 August 2018 a debt collector came to the office where I worked as an app developer in a small digital agency in Croydon.
I heard later he was actually one of the debt collectors who sometimes pops up on one of those daytime TV shows “Can’t Pay? We’ll Take It Away!” or the “Sheriffs Are Coming” or some other poverty porn.
But the cameras weren’t there that day. Just my boss, having an uncomfortable conversation, by the door.
I remember sneaking my work laptop into my rucksack and heading for lunch thinking “if the company goes bust and I don’t get paid this month, at least I’ll get a laptop out of it.”
True enough, a few months later I found myself out of a job, and stepped into the unknown.
The Redundancy Survivor’s Field Guide by Graham Till identifies several key phases you go through when you’ve been handed a cardboard box and been escorted out the building:
And so it was, like clockwork, a few months later, I found myself in a bleak NHS room with pale blue walls, waiting for an assessment of my sinking mental health.
I distinctly remember leaving the building that very same day, and getting call from a friend.
She said her old boss loved the idea of doing an app. And so we set out to create an app business together.
Stepping out into the unknown, no idea if the app would sell or be a success. Just a wing and a prayer, and suddenly a lot of time on my hands.
It’s more impressive if someone quits their job to start a business. For me the decision was easy: I was unemployed. Also, trying to go back to what I did before gave me pain.
Scouting jobs, I remember sitting in tech launch event in East London. I did a double take when the woman next to me she showed me the app she was working on, car insurance or something.
It was almost identical to the failed project I’d just left. Not a copy, just another soulless corporate clone. She said they were hiring… and I fled.
Around this time I started exploring my local area and for the first time, really opened my eyes.
This is how I found myself at the open studios weekend at Peckham Levels, a converted old multi-storey car park.
On a tour, a man from the council in smart shoes told me that Burning Man had wanted to take the multi-storey over for a festival, but he wanted something that would make local jobs for young people.
We visited a jewellery maker on the ground floor, a carpenter, a company that did something with lights and virtual reality. We passed hipsters partying in the hallway, and as we circled up, the last stop was the Future Strategy Club on the top floor.
Justin the founder had a glass of red wine in hand and encouraged me to join a club for freelancers.
To cut a long story short, three years later I find myself working freelance through a couple of collectives, for more money than ever before. With an app in the app stores, and a couple of websites to my name. I don’t know if they will be successes. I don’t know what my next freelance contract will be. I’ll step into the unknown.
And if it’s shit, I’ll feel the pain and pivot.
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