After thinking and thinking and thinking….
I got to the point of having the idea in my head.

I jotted down a few notes but nothing more than that.
I decided to see if there are any companies that already do what I thought about. My idea can’t be really that new, could it?

I spent more than I week trying to find something similar but couldn’t. Since this is all new to me it could be that I’m just new at this, so I decided to try and locate some people that are already doing things like that.

Searching got me to some Facebook groups that I quickly signed up to. After then I posted some questions and got some responses that weren’t very helpful. But I could understand from them who are the people that have some knowledge about what I was looking for. I contacted them privately and started a conversation about the matter.

Quickly it became apparent that I didn’t know what I was talking about. I was going from one subject to another. diving into the details and coming back up to the idea leaving the listener confused.

The first advice that I received was to create a pitch deck.
For you who are not familiar with this term, a pitch deck is a presentation going through your idea quickly. It should explain the problem, your solution, the market share, prospect, and any other relevant information that you may have. It shouldn’t be too long or too short and finally should persuade the listener to participate in your endeavor, whether its with technical or professional help or of course financial investment.

That was a sold idea. The pitch deck will not only helps others understand what you are after, it also helps you understand what you want from the idea. It makes you go into to the finer details of your idea and so will help distill the main components of it from the distractors.

I began to work…

Well, I have an idea. It’s very raw, but I have a great feeling about it.
But you might know this already that an idea is not enough. We often encounter a new device/tech/company that made something that we thought about. Then comes the What The F#@^(*@ moment.

We have to understand that an idea with the implementation of it is worth nothing or something very close to nothing. It’s always the implementation that takes the hard work even if the idea was clever or something that no one else thought about.
The problem is that we all have ideas but no clue on how o proceed with them. So we keep them a secret until we find out that someone else has implemented them.

So I am exactly in the same position now. I have no idea on how to proceed. The one thing that I do have (and didn’t about a decade ago) is a bit more courage and the understanding that even taking a step in a general direction is a good one. In most cases it will lead you to somewhere you did not expect.

So I decided that that the first step will be to understand if anyone else has done this already ….

So I’m back to square 1.
Not sure how I should proceed but really motivated to do something.
And so I figured that if you can’t beat them join them.

Kinda…

Well, it suddenly occurred to me that in order to get my dream job I’ll have to first work for at least 5 years for jobs that I don’t really like and at my current old age of 43 this seems too much. On the other hand why not just create the job I wanted. The more I thought about it the more it sounded great and I went and found my old notes for great ideas that will change the world .

I went over the list and while most of the ideas seems outdated and banal, some had real potential but were not really leading me the path of what I wanted to do.

But then I came across a note I made about a Moth story I heard 2 years ago by Micaela Blei. It was about a way a teacher in the U.S used role-playing to teach 3rd graders about the Oregon Trail. If you are not familiar with her then you should:

After watching the clip again the wheels started spining in my head and I after a few hours I decided that I got it…

I began to look for a new job.
LinkedIn is my first place and I found a decent amount of jobs that I think I can do well. I also browsed Facebook and finally woken up Woo.io which I find as a good match for both job search applications that doesn’t bother you too much.

The offers started coming some looked very promising and some plain boring. Nevertheless, I applied to most of them just to see what is my position in the market.

After 2 weeks I cam to these conclusions:

• My CV is problematic because recruiters are not sure how to handle a person who left the Hi-Tech industry for more than a decade and now wants to go back.
• I personally find it more challenging to do product management than actual development.
• I am really attracted to the gaming industry but I’m sure that feeling is mutual 😒

While I did get actual job offers, I was afraid I would lose interest too fast and thought it would be really unfair to the companies, especially if these are small companies who can’t really spend cash on training employees and then letting them go. Trust me I’ve been there and its really frustrating hiring the wrong person.

So I’m back to square one. Whats next?

So its almost June and I know for a while now that the COVID-19 is slowly killing the workplace I work in.

I have been working for 6 months at Bio-T when it became clear that COVID-19 is here to stay. The company that we were doing a project for was showing signs that the project will not continue for long.

While I’m a software developer by profession I spent the last 12 years managing a family owned company. The company had its ups and downs and we decided to sell it in 2018. I stayed for a year after the sale and decided that I need to do something else. Maybe go back to being a software developer? Maybe start a new company? I wasn’t sure.

I decided that as a first step I’ll brush up on my coding skills by learning to develop for Android and create some sample projects. After 6 months I was ready to go back to the Hi-Tech scene. I created some Android project and was in the middle of creating my first real app called Shouter when I was offered an entry job at Bio-T.

I accepted and began working as a backed developer.
I had a blast. at the things I missed in the last decade. All the progress that was done in so many technology fields was something that I really missed.
I learned a lot and contributed a lot but alas the end was in sight.

By the end of may I was told that I’m going to have to go on furlough for at least 2 months with the good possibility of it being permanent.

While I was sad I did look at that as an opportunity. I immediately enrolled in 2 online coursed to better understand CI/CD concepts and working with Docker and Jenkins. The courses were great and I quickly finished them.

But now what? another course? React sounds nice? but then what?
I decided not to wait and look for a new job – a better one…