One month in

I'm writing this blog on the 14th May 2020 after launching Abingdon Digital on 14th April 2020. It's hard to summarise how the last 6 weeks have been; I've had huge ups & downs, some glimmers of hope, some successes and also some periods when I've seriously doubted myself and what I'm trying to do. All that, plus dealing with family life during a pandemic and trying to come to terms with being hung-out to dry with no support from a Government job retention scheme that most people see as a positive thing...

I set out at the start by saying that the time was probably right for me to take this step, and that I'd use the skills I'd built up over the years as a digital product manager to explore potential opportunities. What I hadn't predicted was that using those skills, tools and techniques on yourself instead of someone else's business or website is really hard. I'm the one both asking and answering the questions, identifying & understanding my own needs and problems, and also generating & evaluating ideas. It's probably not the way to do it, and it's probably very biased. This is where I really miss working with a cross-functional team to achieve a shared objective.

One mitigation for this came from an unexpected place; I've been blown away by how open and helpful other small business owners are to a newbie like me. A small amount of networking online via Oxfordshire Business Buzz has lead to some amazing contacts being made, even if, at this stage, it's only been to bounce my ideas around and help refine what it is that I'm trying to do - to remove the bias. I've had so many conversations that have helped me to shape my thinking and decide to do what's right for me. It's an incredible community that thrives off each other. I feel that through just a few conversations, I've had more personal development in the last 4 weeks than I had in my last 4 years as an employee (the last role that I left being the exception here).

Something that's been really distracting, though, is the temptation to go backwards. Compared to as little as a month ago, the jobs market in the digital industry seems to be coming back to life - which means the temptation to quickly start bringing in an income by applying for permanent roles has massively increased. There are some really interesting opportunities out there too, and I'm finding that it's really testing my nerve. However, when I look at the roles and visualise myself going back into a perm career, I just see myself doing the same thing for the next 20 years and it forces me to remember that it's a path that's not going to get me any closer to my goals.

What's next

The one thing keeping me going on the straight and narrow is a clear long-term vision, and it's one that I've had for a while without really having a clue about how to get it, or the time to work that out. I visualise myself at the point of retirement and think about what would make me satisfied that I'd done what I needed to do. I know that I won't be satisfied if I could say that I became a digital director running a team of 100 people in someone else's business, but that I would be satisfied if I looked back at 40+ years of experiencing lots of different industries around the world, building innovative digital products and experiences to solve business and customer needs, and doing it whilst also being able to spend the time and energy I want to in helping to run a charity I'm involved in.

I've spent a lot of time focussing on the immediate need to find work, and have realised that a better use of time might be to put effort into understanding my end goal and working backwards to define the steps that I actually should be taking in order to get there, rather than focussing 100% on getting my first engagements. Explaining what a digital product manager does in a digital team of a large organisation doesn't translate well into an elevator pitch if you're trying to sell that skillset to a business owner who may not have a digital team. I'm doing well at understanding more about who my target market is, even if only by working out who it isn't first.

Having spoken with a business coach and attended an excellent webinar about business growth (again run by another small business owner), I've set a milestone for myself which is to have a clear business purpose and proposition by the end of this month. I'll update again next month on progress!

(There are also plans in place to start a podcast with a couple of industry pals...)