My Point of No Return as an Self-Employed Entrepreneur

I share the pivotal moment that led me to quit my job, embrace the unknown, and race towards earning 10K USD from products I build.

My Point of No Return

Last week at 1AM, on my way back home on the metro, I proposed to my friend a race. The person who earns 10K USD from products or services first wins. Freelancing or consulting doesn't count. He committed on the spot.

We asked GPT-4 what to bet. After some back and forth, we agreed to this:

• The loser has to create a commemorative plaque for the winner.

• The winner gets to roast the loser in front of our mutual friends.

• Following the loss the loser has to write a brief report on the current state of the goal, and a plan to achieve it, then follow up with results.

The next day I announced my resignation at work. I deliberately avoided any family or friends until this was done. I knew that any hesitation would be fatal and I had unshakable confidence in my instinct. Once I made the decision in my heart, I had to follow through to the end.

A general burns his boats. Committing his army to victory or death.

The Seed & The Soil (Fortuitous Conditions)

The Seed

What do I mean by “burn the boats”? To accomplish something great, you have to give yourself no escape route, no chance to ever turn back.
- Burn the Boats, Matt Higgins

Years ago, I read in Willpower Doesn’t Work by Benjamin Hardy how every successful entrepreneur has a point of no return. A point of decision (i.e. cut off other options) and irreversible action that sets the stakes. They trigger a state of full commitment in themselves. They’re invested. They’re all in. There’s no going back.

The idea quietly took root in a hidden corner of my mind, biding its time to emerge. In Theravada Buddhism, there's a term called "adhiṭṭhāna", which I prefer to translate as "determination". It's described as a capacity one can cultivate to resolutely decide or will something into being, effectively collapsing the future into a single possibility. When my moment of decision finally arrived, I felt this powerful determination click into place, as if locking into a mech suit, ready for action.

The Soil

I did not make my decision out of nowhere. I had been preparing for months to make the option of quitting my job or losing it at anytime available seamlessly. Just when all the factors came together, the moment soon came and I had to move.

Even as I prepared, I faced uncertainty about where I wanted to go with my career. However, within the uncertainty I discovered a feeling that was initially as fuzzy as a clump of cotton. As I inquired deeper, it transformed into a crystal-clear sensation – a powerful longing. This longing yearned to become like a mycelium, an organism that intimately digests and adapts to its environment, an unbridled chemical lab of creativity. I aspired to be a fearless navigator, steering my vessel through an uncharted ocean of uncertainty and chaos, the waters reflecting a raw, exposed, and attuned connection with reality. Like mycelium flourishing on the side of Mount Vesuvius, I crave the ability to thrive in any environment, erasing the distinction between myself and the ever-changing world around me. It's a lust for a raw, total connection with reality, for a dance with the tumultuous waves of life.

My desires could not be fulfilled by any job. I want to live and breathe in an environment where results are all that matter, where no excuses hold. To answer only to reality, I had to set out into the vast ocean on my own.

Pathfinding on the uncharted ocean of chaos.

So What’s My Plan?

I’ve been asked multiple times already something to the effect of “So what’s your great product idea?”. The answer is I don’t have the slighest clue. I did not leave my job to live in a fantasy, but to listen and surrender to what the world has to say. But I do have a rough plan, some constraints on my goal, and some general principles and tactics.

Plan

1. Identify an audience that’s online, that buys and that I relate to.

2. Research and listen to audience until I know them better than themselves.

3. Start a conversation and delivering small bits of value.

4. Build a tiny product and launch.

Repeat any step or the whole cycle as many times as necessary to make 10K+ USD.

The rough plan is based on the 30x500 approach. Amy Hoy’s and Alex Hillman’s course will be my guide throughout the whole process.

Constraints

• I'm not allowed to earn any money from freelancing or gig work until I make my first product dollar. I can only sell stuff around the house to pay my small bills if necessary. (This prevents me from procrastinating on launching something by finding freelance work.)

• I will keep Saturdays blocked off for practicing Uposatha (~Buddhist sabbath) and doing my day long coding retreat and live stream as when I had a job.

• I will allow some time every week for my other interests (such as learning Agda and denotional design, writing, problem-spaces research, contributing to Remix.run open source framework). I’m not sure what rhythm I will settle in, but I expect to dedicate 2-4 days of week completely blocked off for launching product.

• Allow myself to stop anytime and write as much as I like when inspiration strikes.

• I’m not sure what other constraints may be helpful. If you have suggestions, leave them in the comments!

Principles

• Embrace Total Surrender.

  • Let go of any fixation on specific ideas or wishes. Be able to read, feel and orient yourself to the signals of reality. Be flexible and take any form that life asks of you.

• Festina Lente. Micro Speed. Macro Patience.

  • Set yourself on fire with overwhelming selfishness on a daily basis. Hunger to take a hold of your desires and don’t hesitate to burn everything.

  • Be serene at heart. Unfettered as a bird and completely content. Not disturbed in the slightest that your full vision will take decades to bear fruit.

• Enjoy the Journey.

  • Meet every day as if meeting your lover for the first time again.

  • “You should enjoy the little detours to the fullest. Because that's where you'll find the things more important than what you want.” - Ging Freecss, Hunter x Hunter

• Memento Mori.

Tactics

• Execute my plans within deep work sessions in uncomfortably high gears interspersed by rest akin to laying on the grass and watching clouds float by. AKA a polarized training schedule.

  

  Polarized training schedule. 80% low gear, 5% mid gear, 15% high gear.

  • “Professor Seiler’s research describes how the world’s best endurance athletes ‘polarise’ their training, spending most of their time in low gear, 10%-20% focussed on very intense work in their high gear, and very little time spent working at moderate intensities.” - Exponential, James Hewitt & Aki Hintsa

• Focus on maintaining a coherent life rhythm. Pay close attention to markers of coherence like a stable sleep schedule and consistent deep work. Systematically eliminate sources of entropy that cause incoherence. Treat my routine, environment and containers for deep work like maintaining a surgical cleanroom.

• For every decision I make consider the question: “Will it make the boat go faster?”. With every opportunity like “should this go on my calendar?”, or use of my attention like “should I read this post”, ask if it will be concentrating or dissipating energy towards my goal.

  • “It is like the burning of fuel in a rocket – all energy that is being created is going in one direction. That is why it goes up the way it does. If the energy went in five different directions, the rocket would not go anywhere. It is the same with you. If everything becomes unidirectional, then you will go somewhere, but if it goes in five different destinations, it is obviously not interested in going anywhere.” - Sadhguru, What is Brahmacharya?

• In some cases, focus means you’re accelerating towards a dead end. The previous heuristic should be applied only when goal-orientedness is appropriate for the given aim. Many problems that have a non-obvious path to a solution benefit from non-goal-orientedness in order to explore the massive search space more efficiently. Any entrepreneurial endevour will require a seesaw between both goal and non-goal orientedness. Read “Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective” by Kenneth O. Stanley & Joel Lehman for an in-depth analysis of why it’s so hard to achieve ambitious objectives using goal-oriented algorithms.

Conclusion

Armed with my goal, commitment, plan and principles, it’s time to go make that money!

To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men.
- Francisco's “Money” Speech, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand

Money-money-money is the root of all virtue!

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