Notes for Week 43, 2024

Song of the week:

Notes

Somewhat delayed post as technically I'm posting on the following week, but a long weekend got in the way of my deploying this week's ramble.

A weekend where the family went down to our holiday place in Dunmore East to, in effect, say goodbye for the season. We mostly cleaned out the presses, shelves and fridge. Setup the dehumidifier. Gave it a thorough clean, emptied every possible bin and set off back to Dublin. We'll definitely do bits 'n bobs between now and early Spring next year, but not a full week, let alone a full weekend. I'll pop down with a mate for a few drinks to keep the lights on, etc.

It's sort-of bittersweet because it's such a nice place to be. It instantly relaxes me to be next to the sea. The kids love being able to go out, run around and be in a space that's safe, green and has a weird amount of playgrounds per capita. But also, it marks the first of a series of things that begins the wind down of 2024. Halloween is fast approaching (creche has already done it's spooky Halloween dress-up day, given lots of kids will be off next week with older siblings during midterm), I've already seen Christmas stuff up in shops and broadly, winter is coming.

On a distinctly different note, I've been thinking about career and work in general. I'm really enjoying my time at $current, and expect to be there for quite a while. I've been able to flex in so many ways in the past three-and-a-bit years already. And I came fairly well-baked from my prior stint in another tech company (where I was witness to startup, IPO and enterprise phases).

But I probably won't end my career here. And given my recent slightly-meh feedback for Q4, my direct manager probably wouldn't rue that idea!

$current is the first time I've taken a decade+ worth of experience and put it into one, relatively distinct focus area; ecosystem. Partners, system integrators, global system integrators. Big household names. Small weekend-project-spiralling-out-of-control companies. Tech behemoths. And everything in-between. It's been phenomenal. And while I had such exposure and worked with partners in my past life, it wasn't my core focus. And funny enough, every year at $previous' annual conference, the top bit of feedback from partners was always more access to presales folks. And here I am, doing that now; albeit at a different scale and enterprise-grade.

Which makes me think that I wouldn't be afraid of spinning up a small-mid sized partner agency to do consulting and tech deployment in the future. I've seen how the movie plays out. Have a strong starting team (I would easily nail that), hire talented engineering and product folks in tier 2 countries/cities to spread the cost (have that network already) and then go sell the shite out of it to some marquee clients. Build the book, and sell the business to a bigger fish.

Let's say we did that, and it went to plan. If I had spare cash beyond making sure my family was setup etc., I would love to have a vanity company. I love the idea of taking old, relatively famous cars, and remixing them for modern life. Not just EV conversions (something I've waffled on about for years), but full tributes to old cars. Think of a fully reimagined, niche Ford Escort upgraded from old analogue wobbly bits to modern, analogue-meets-digital EV. Expensive, tough to justify, but make just enough of them to turn a profit so you can do another one. One line every year, selling just a few hundred vehicles in the process. It would never compete with even a small EV company, but it would be thrilling to do. And the niche end of it would mean it could represent one of the few times Ireland could have a moderately successful car company!

(via my flickr)

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Published on: 28th October, 2024

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