Ok. So I'm building a thing.

More specifically, it's a company that's bootstrapped. I'm going to livetweet the process for those that are interested. Occassionally, I'll put summary stuff here. Since I decided to document after I started actually working on it, I want to put the process so far right here.

Disingenuously, many people claim that the origin story of their businesses are that they saw a problem. This is often a lie, or at least subordinate to the real origin. A good number of times, people want to make a business or money for other reasons, and then tack on the purpose after. If you get the MBA and then a year later suddenly feel a deep need for "x" in the world, you're full of shit, probably.

So anyways, speaking candidly, I have tried to start a few times, sometimes thinking it was a "good idea" for making money and other times thinking it was interesting, and other times feeling there was a need in the world.

None of these feelings matter in isolation, and every single time, I've botched the marketing. "Surprise, here is a thing, does anyone want it?" Nope.

Anyways, I'm doing it again, and documenting as I go.

So far

So far, I've:

• registered a domain name
• done some basic twitter polling
• drawn some sketches
• played with pricing models
• determined a minimal yet coherent feature set
• thought about potential partnerships and advisors
• done a competitive analysis
• thought through a couple of personas/antipersonas
• drawn up some "love letters" to the service (as if someone had written them after having a good experience)
• come up with topics for about 20 or so blog posts
• seen a lot of 404's in this area
• come up with a mascot
• priced out complimentary services
• determined a few marketing ideas I'd like to try
• decided that charity donation is built into the pricing page

All of these things are subject to iteration, and even the feature set is a moving target. One thing I'm doing differently this time is aligning my worldview very strongly with the service.

I'm building a company to help people find jobs in tech. It's a thing I know. I've had a lot of jobs, and a lot of jobs suck for some reasons I know intimately and some I can't. I decided it's going to cost money (for individual people), because I'm bootstrapping and I can't retain authenticity and be supported by hiring departments. If anything, the people I'm looking to help are likely as skeptical as me of the idea of becoming "inventory."

Yes there are a billion free job boards and half a billion recruiters or robo-recruiter services. Those are fine, but at best, it's a foot-in-the-door with a recruiter, and I've personally had some super bland conversations from those services. I'm building something different.

Why now?

I'm completely exhausted by politics and being sad all the time. I can only laugh about the unique and dismal failings of this administration here and there. The takedowns, the hot takes, the absurdists. It's good, but it cuts too deep. Most of the time, it's just very sad and upsetting. Fox News has completely wrecked some of the older males in my family, and YT assholes are working on the younger ones.

On the plus side, there are many appeals to empathy that I haven't noticed before. People are doing amazing work building and rebuilding support networks.

I care about issues and people that I didn't know about before. But rumination is worse than worthless, and constantly consuming the precursor inevitably results in that.

I've heard some advice to take notice of things subtly changing around you when there's fascist shit going on. I'm in Berkeley, and it's not subtle. The motherfuckers coming to pick fights. It's not "both sides." It's the boldest, ugliest shit that I've seen. And the people who stand up to them get shit on for broken windows. "News Cycle," "Both Sides," and Megaphoning (tech platforms or otherwise) everyone who is already loud has given us the most repugnant, high-ground middle. Also not subtle was the new pat down for the opt-out at the airport. Far more invasive, and this fucking kid screwed it up, so it had to be done again, and in a claustrophobic room. I can't imagine enduring stop-and-frisk procedures with regularity. As it was, I was shaking, hyperventilating and crying, wondering if I'd still get to see my very sick aunt. It was violent. If you used to do opt-out, I'd recommend against it now. I've done that dozens of times before.

The times that I've felt most encouraged lately have been from people making things that completely transport me. I went to the Color Factory in SF the day before I left for my aunt's funeral. Hearing Neil Cicierega's and SZA's latest albums. The day that my sister's dog died (at 8 months, during a routine neutering procedure), I distracted myself by installing "dust corners" on my parents' staircase (a birthday gift to my mom). Ended up nice and kept my mind off things.

I can't really get excited about much tech stuff right now, because the ways it's been weaponized are getting so pervasive. We've been disrupted, and it fucking sucks.

So I'm building a thing

There's a bunch of tragic and ugly shit going on, but maybe I can distract myself and some other people by doing something cool. I want to help people that want tech to be good, and I want to highlight companies that are doing good. In the spirit of transparency, I also am doing this to make money, and have always wanted to not have to rely on any one person or company to make my living. This is what I want for everyone.

Stability and loyalty can't be optional for employers and compulsory for employees. Tech can't have unions because they get paid too much and leave too easily to collaborate. I'd love to be wrong in the future, but at this point, the best I think we can hope for is to make those transitions more fluid. Asshole CEOs and toxic environments should be bleeding talent constantly. Companies that care about people as more than "resources" should be the ones we hear about. Enough migration might even spur on more consultancies (and collectives).

So anyways, I'm building a career management system. It's not funded by companies, because I need the flexibility to vacillate between cynicism and excitement when talking about possible jobs and companies. If I take their money, I can't do that authentically.