Taking a Chance

I wouldn't necessarily consider us "lottery people", but over the past few years we've established a bit of a tradition to buy one ticket on birthdays. It makes for a simple add-on to slip into a card and because we buy the cheapest ticket with the least numbers possible (which I'm sure doesn't affect our chances of not winning in the slightest) it just serves to provide a little extra excitement on the day. We are rational people and understand that there's no real chance in making our fortune through a single ticket, but that doesn't stop us from dreaming of how our lives could change. Putting aside the cliche of blowing a responsible portion of our imagined new found wealth on a new house, new toys and a luxurious round the world trip, we would eventually turn our fictitious life planning towards what to do vocationally for the rest of our lives.

Software Development was something that I took to very quickly once I was introduced to programming in high school. It's something that I enjoy far beyond a means to put food on the table, so in my newly found fictitious state of financial independence I naturally choose to retain this aspect of my work. I dream of working out of a home office with flexible hours and building software and products that I'm interested in and enjoy using. I dream of having the luxury to decide what I think is important to work on and when, so that I can be around to appreciate the early years of my little girl and growing family. I dream of owning something that I can point to and say I've built with my own hands, rather than an organisation that I have a transient relationship with.

At this point I should clarify that we haven't won the lottery. In fact, it's quite the opposite of that. I did however find that following a thought experiment of what I would do if I had won the lottery helped to frame what may seem like a reckless leap in my career. Last week I put my resignation in at Flight Centre with the intention to start a new business in partnership with my long-suffering colleague and frequent supervisor, Chris Perry. Rather than waiting to cash in that winning ticket, we've decided that it's worth acting as if we've already won and to see where that may take us.

I have three weeks left at the company, with Chris and me finishing up on the 20th of September. I'm certainly finding it hard to leave a place where I've invested as much as I have over the last four years. It's particularly difficult with all the things happening at work right now and I will regret leaving a great group of people that are on the cusp of making some very exciting changes to the business. Alison and I already had two weeks of holidays booked for Francois and Sam's wedding so that will be a nice break before we kick into real work. It might just be the last long holiday we have for a while so I'm keen to unwind and relax as much as possible.

The name of the new business is Socket Software and we aim to focus on a combination of developing software products for the market, custom development and consulting. We have a couple of existing products already that have been soft launched and a register of new ideas that we can market test to see what to do next. Unlike the beginning of most Cinderella start up stories that I've read, we don't have a specific idea that we feel is going to change the world. Our intentions are a little more modest. We believe that we might just have enough capability and chutzpah to make a career choice that is going to change our lives.

Here's hoping we have a winning ticket.