sacha chua living an awesome life

My research supervisor asked me to meet with one of his joint ventures, possibly for some consulting later on. I told him I’m not planning to take on new consulting clients for a while, but that I was happy to see what I could add to the conversation as a small way of saying thank for you all the help that my research supervisor had given me. It was a great conversation. After hearing about what they wanted to do, I suggest some resources they should check out, and we sketched out a strategy that would help them gradually build and test their service without having to build a large user base or a complex tool right away.

I like helping startups out this way, and I’ve chatted with quite a few. I enjoy reading about technology and business, and that makes it easy to share other companies working on similar problems in different industries or niches. I like taking a good idea and helping people flesh it out.

I’m not particularly interested in charging for these consultations — when you’re a startup, you’ll find no end of people who are willing to give free or paid advice – or in follow-up consulting or development engagements. The pay-off for me is being able to test good ideas without having to do all the hard work. If I can help people find a good strategy, then they’ll do the work of validating and improving on it, and I get better at thinking my way through these challenges and integrating ideas from all sorts of places. I also enjoy getting to know interesting people, and I’m getting better at keeping track of people and connecting them with each other.

There’s probably something useful in there. As I learn more about business and technology, I might be able to create even more value. Let’s see where that takes us!

Click on the image for a larger version. Feel free to reshare it under the Creative Commons Attribution License. =)

Christine Steiger shared how she had risen through the ranks in a large fitness company, teaching herself a lot about sales. She then started her own company so that she could provide more personalized service in a woman-friendly environment. She emphasized the need for marketing and creative promotions, including building relationships with other business owners. I liked her focus and her drive, and I’m looking forward to applying what I learned in my own business.

Thanks to Christine for sharing, and thanks to Margaret Wigglesworth and the Toronto Reference Library for hosting!

Previous Small Business Network meetups at the Toronto Reference Library:

• Sandra Emilia Calderaro (Multilingual Kids), Andres D’Imperio (designer) – July 2012
• Pamela MacDonald, Liako Dertilis, Billy Dertilis (Red Rocket Coffee) – June 2012
• The Shy Entrepreneur (me) – April 2012
• Sal Sloan of Fetching! – March 2012
• Kristina Chau of notyouraverageparty – February 2012

See my other sketchnotes of tech and business meetups, books, and other thoughts, or subscribe to my blog. (It can be quite a lot of information, though, so if you prefer, you can subscribe to just the sketchnotes instead.) Share your thoughts through Twitter (@sachac), blog comments, or e-mail. Enjoy! =)

My fiscal year-end is September 30, which means I don’t have to compete with all the individuals and sole proprietors for accountants’ attention. It’s still a few months away, but I want to make sure that I’m keeping books in a way that will make it straightforward to file taxes.

Using the oDesk freelancing service, I advertised a part-time contract for a bookkeeping/accounting advisor who could help me learn how to manage my books – not necessarily do the data entry, but helping me structure the accounts and learn how to file properly. This was the job post:

I’m looking for part-time help getting started with Quickbooks (Canadian version). This is my first year of business, and my federal corporation’s year-end is September 30. I am currently in IT consulting, but may add e-book sales over the next year.

I need help:

• Correctly setting up my Quickbooks files
• Learning how to enter transactions properly (notes, phone calls, or screennsharing)
• Reviewing transactions, perhaps on a quarterly basis
• Answering questions during occasional consultation sessions
• Getting things ready for taxes

I will mostly send questions by e-mail. We can also set up time to talk on the phone or Skype, and we can find ways to share the screen so that you can see what I’m doing or vice versa.

Only applicants who can work with Quickbooks Pro 2012 (Canadian version) will be considered. If you can work with that and have your own licensed version, please start your reply with “Yes”.

Looking forward to working with you!

I received 18 applications, many overseas. Because I wanted someone who could give me both accounting and bookkeeping advice for a federally-incorporated company based in Ontario, I focused on people who were local. I interviewed three people over e-mail and the phone. I picked one from Dunnville, Ontario, which is about 120km away from Toronto, or two hours by car. She offered to set up face-to-face meetings, but I’m comfortable working online, so we decided to skip that. (I might meet up with her if she happens to be in town for other things, though!)

I shared my Quickbooks files and scanned receipts with her through Dropbox. She reviewed the file and sent me her notes. I replied, updated my Quickbooks file with her suggestions, and asked a few questions of my own. She sent me more answers and notes. I’ve just updated my file and sent her more notes, and I’ll probably get a reply next week. For example, we fixed some errors in my Chart of Accounts, and she told me how I could file the computer hardware and software as fixed assets in order to make the depreciation calculations easier.

The arrangement works really well for me–probably much better than a face-to-face accounting/bookkeeper relationship would. I’m fine with scanning receipts and organizing electronic invoices myself. I don’t want to just show up at the end of the year with a box full of receipts. I like learning about Quickbooks and being able to ask questions knowing that the answers will be specific to my location and applicable tax laws. My accountant suggests things that I might have otherwise missed. This is good.

I can grow my business slowly, which is handy. For the first fiscal year, for example, I can avoid having anything to do with payroll or dividends if I don’t take any money out or hire people as employees. I can ease into that over the next few years, as I get the hang of things. I registered for HST so I didn’t have to worry about messing around with the paperwork once I reached the threshold of $30k earnings. It was easier for me to collect HST from the start.

Because she tracks her time using oDesk, I don’t feel guilty about asking lots of questions. oDesk also captures screenshots, so I can get a peek into how she works. It’s a pretty good setup. I could probably get free or paid advice from a face-to-face person, but I’d feel guilty about wringing out lots of free advice, and I’d probably have to batch up my questions more for paid in-person or on-the-phone advice if we didn’t have this fine-grained tracking and payment system.

I’m learning about business finance at a manageable pace, and I like it. If you’re starting out in business and you like numbers, I’d recommend hiring a bookkeeper/accountant whom you can ask lots of questions, too.

Today I learned that I can make image ads pretty easily. I’ve been redesigning the homepage for this intranet site I’m working on, and part of the new design is one of those rotating slideshows. I played around with different sizes and layouts, read up on ad design, and mocked up a few ideas. Tada! Now I do graphic design. (Well, a bit.) This weekend, I’ll see if I can make up one of those for my little e-book.

I’ve been thinking about what I want to learn how to do. On this engagement, I want to learn more about graphic design, web design, writing, and maybe a bit more Javascript development.

For myself, I want to:

• learn more about e-book writing, editing, and formatting: I really enjoyed putting together that e-book with the highlights from the past ten years of my blog posts. I liked making that PDF, and I want to learn how to make beautiful and usable EPUBs too. I want to put together information on Emacs, self-tracking, experimenting with business, happiness… You know, make a dent in that list of book ideas I blogged about last year, and come up with more ideas along the way.
• learn Android app development for tablets and phones: I like the Android app ecosystem more than the iOS one, even though the iOS world is flashier. I love the way tablets and phones are turning computing into an everyday-at-your-fingertips experience, and I want to help imagine ways that we can make even better use of these capabilities.
• build Emacs resources: It’s an awesome editor, and I want to help more people learn how to use it.
• learn how to build more tools with Rails or WordPress, maybe? They’re both great ways to build websites, and it would be fun to figure out how to build more sophisticated tools.

I started my own business four months ago, and I’ve been slowly poking and prodding the boundaries of my comfort zone.

Consulting has been an excellent start. It allowed me to build on my experience in intranet social business and in web development. I took on those engagements because I like working with those particular clients and I could see how I could make a difference. Now I’m helping them build their own capabilities. I’d rather teach and build my way out of a job so that we can free up time and attention for the next level.

Besides, I want to make sure that I don’t just stay within my comfort zone. I want to learn more about other business models and ideas, such as building products and creating value in scalable ways.

My clients are mostly stable now, so I’ve been investing more time into drawing, writing, and learning. Toronto has many meetups focusing on business and technology, and I’m starting to get the hang of the rhythm of a page when I create sketchnotes: how time roughly translates to space so that I don’t run out of room and I don’t end up with too many blanks. I find myself digging up my sketchnotes from previous meetings. They’re very handy.

I reviewed ten years of blog posts and compiled the highlights into an e-book, spending some time on layout so that the PDF looked good on-screen. I’ll work on creating an EPUB version as well so that people can read it on Kindles and other e-book readers. It’s my very first experiment with creating an information product. I figured that I’d want to remember the milestones, and maybe people might resonate with the things I’ve learned about dealing with homesickness or living an awesome life. Four people have bought it so far, and it’s only been up for a day. I’m amazed and encouraged! Thank you for the votes of confidence, and for being part of the story. I look forward to sharing more.

I’ve also been learning a lot about Emacs because I want to make things better and help more people learn. I had a lot of fun talking to John Wiegley over Skype, and people have suggested other people whom I should talk to. This is another area where I’m tweaking my comfort zone. I’m going to learn how to ask people if I can pick their brains, and I’m going to learn how to package and share that information so that other people can learn from those conversations too. So many good things to explore!

Where do I want to go next? I think writing, drawing, and learning will keep me busy for a while. I’m gearing up for a couple of talks – July, September, and November – and perhaps chatting with more people about Emacs and other things. I want to get better at reaching out and keeping in touch. I’m also looking forward to getting better at managing other people. Delegating data entry has been working out very well, and now I’m working on learning how to delegate book-keeping and web development.

I’m learning a lot, and I’m making things better. This is good.

I’ve been in business for four months, hooray! Consulting is going well. I want to learn how to build products, though – maybe short e-books or small apps. That’s going to be significantly different from the consulting that I did as as an employee and as a freelancer, and it’ll be a terrific learning experience.

The idea of about building products is intimidating, though. What can I do to create value? How can I get that into people’s hands, and will people buy? There’s some resistance in my brain even in terms of brainstorming ideas, but if I keep pushing, I’ll break through. AFter all, I’m surrounded by products. People have figured out how to create value for other people. I can do this too.

I have a hard time thinking of ideas when I try to use big questions like: “What kind of difference do I want to make in the world?” “What problem do I want to solve?” “When I look back at this five-year experiment, what do I want to have accomplished?” I’m going to try sneaking up on ideas like this: “What’s the smallest problem I can solve for other people, and can I get people to pay me a dollar for it?” Something like that.

It’s a tough shift for me to make, going from an employee or consultant to a proper entrepreneur. People tell me what they want and they reward me when I make things happen. Coming up with something and seeing if it sticks… there’s a lot of uncertainty in there. I’m getting better at making mistakes and not beating myself up about them, though, and once I can break through that fear or messing up, I’ll do even better.

I don’t have to come up with something new. I don’t have to come up with an innovative business model. I can start by picking something and making it better. The worst thing would be to be overwhelmed by ideas and never get started. I don’t have to hit a homerun on my first time on the plate. What’s important is that I get out there and I learn how to swing.

I am going to write. I want to summarize those ten years of blog highlights. I don’t know if it solves a problem in the world, much less be something that people will pay me for, but it will teach me about editing and formatting, and maybe people will buy it for a small sum considering that people spend on all sorts of other reading. Then I want to start compiling and writing time-saving tips, nifty ideas, and other things I learn. People have figured this out. I can too.

Making good progress! I spent some time editing my draft while sitting outside in the Adirondack chair I built myself, enjoying the summer breeze. Life is good.

The Great Big Extract of top-rated posts will wait a little while, as I’m working with a WordPress developer (in Bulgaria!) to make a plugin that will allow people to filter my blog by the ratings I’ve set. That way, it’s not just a one-off export. I want to be able to quickly filter my blog posts like the way people filter photos. Wouldn’t that be nifty?

I can probably figure out how to write my own plugin, but I also want to learn about delegating technical tasks. Delegating might involve more time, more money, and more risk, but it’s useful to learn how to delegate on small projects before I end up being the bottleneck on large ones.

I picked someone with good ratings on the oDesk freelancing platform, told him what I was trying to accomplish, set him up with access to my development site, and backed everything up carefully just in case. Let’s see how this goes.

It can be difficult to let go, so I’ve been working on identifying more tasks to delegate. I make long lists of different kinds of activities that I do or want to do – well over two hundred activities like “Analyze my data” in the blogging category and “Clean the litter boxes” in the routines category.

Now I’m fleshing the list out in more detail, starting with the business category. I organized the business activities into the “earn”, “build”, and “connect” subcategories, which I’d been finding useful for my weekly reviews. Focusing on the “business – earn” category, I listed quite a few tasks that I can eliminate, automate, or delegate. For example, while I might outline a talk, I could get an assistant to look up prices and trends, design nifty graphics, or transcribe the presentation.

After I analyze my “business – earn” tasks, I’ll look at my “business – build” tasks. That will probably be harder to delegate, but maybe I’ll find surprising opportunities.

Optimizing non-business tasks such as cooking can also free up time that I can use to build the business. I want to make sure that I don’t end up tilted too far towards business, though, because life is awesome.

Listing all these activities makes it much easier to think about them. Which of these things are core? Where do I have an advantage, and what can other people do much more effectively than I can? What are my processes for these different activities, and how can I improve them? Can I estimate how much time I spend on these activities, and how can I time myself at that level of detail in order to verify my estimates?

One of these days – maybe after I’ve added some time estimates or measurements, or I have some more delegation experiences to report — I’ll put together a braindump of activities so that you can see what it’s like.

In the meantime, you might enjoy playing around with the idea yourself. Think about the things you regularly do, and make a list of as many things as possible. For each item, ask yourself:

• Is this really something I need to do?
• Can I automate most or all of the task? How? Is it worth the time/money/attention tradeoff?
• Can I outsource or delegate it? How? Is it worth the time/money/attention tradeoff?