Business, Start-Up, or Lifestyle
The other day I read an article about starting a lifestyle business versus a start-up. The gist of the article was unless you were a start-up with VC money, you don’t matter; it is not a “real” business. It seemed like a silly distinction at the time, but I have been thinking about what this means to me today in broad terms of how I define work.
Business:
I think of a business as something more traditional: a bakery, an electrician, a dry cleaning store, or a bookkeeping business. Usually service-based, generally with a physical presence. These places are not raising VC money (unless they become chains or franchises) and having IPOs.
Startup
I have worked for three start-up companies. One manufacturer, a fintech company, and an education finance company. Two of them, I have enjoyed, but all of them were incredibly fast-paced and required a lot from the employees. Each had different goals for the long term, but they all were sold in the end. In two of the business, investors existed, one went public, which brought other requirements, and one was just a low-margin grind.
Lifestyle
When I think of a lifestyle business, I think of web-based entrepreneurs, small manufacturers, coaches, and designers/artists. You may have a Shopify or Etsy storefront. A micro web service or something in a particular niche. Many of these can and do grow very large. But do they have to be considered successful or respectable? On more than one occasion, I have heard people say, “Oh, they have a toy business on Shopify.” But they need to understand that the business is enjoyable, extraordinarily profitable, and provides a group of people with a very nice living.
Having worked in all of the above, I continue to lean more toward lifestyle options. Your desire lies based on your wants and needs, which can change with time. As I have gotten older, mine sure have.
- Having a say in your strategy instead of being told what to do (especially if they are wrong).
- Not controlled by a corporate mental time clock.
- Preventing yourself or at least minimizing the corporate grind culture.
- Having the freedom to experiment
Your mileage may vary, but discounting the other options without being able to define what you want out of your work life is silly.
Podcast Editing Statistics
In 2022, I decided to keep track of the time it takes me to edit my wife’s Podcast The Revelation Project. I used Timery1 to track and keep the categories/projects simple, file prep, editing, transcription, and posting the show.
The categories are self-explanatory, but everyone is different.
File Prep: After a recording is complete, I pull it from her machine and do some spot tests to review the quality of the files. From there, I usually run both files through Izotope RX on my Mac, followed by The Levelelator.
Editing: I move the files to my 2020 12.9″ iPad Pro into Ferrite2 to do all the editing.
Transcription: I then run the final file through Descript in order to get a basic transcription. It’s an excellent start, but it does require me to listen again and correct portions and some spelling. I also use this time to pull out any show links for resources that are discussed and create some Headliners that she will post on social media over the week for promotion.
Post Show: Exactly what it sounds like. Convert the file from WAV to MP3 using Marco Arments Forecast to add chapter art and links. Upload the file to Fireside, where the show is hosted. Confirm all the show links, add the sponsor if there is one for the show, and schedule the release.
The chart represents 52 episodes.
Bee Bus Stops ↦
Buzz stops: bus shelter roofs turned into gardens for bees and butterflies | Bees | The Guardian
I signed up for a daily email when Seth Godin collaborated and launched the Carbon Almanac. This piece came in, and I loved the simplicity of this project and how it could have a much more significant impact.
Dutch cities have managed to stabilize urban bee populations in recent years, a study found last year, following decades of declines, and bee hotels and bee stops were among their solutions. Utrecht, which was Europe’s first city to get bee bus stops, now has more than 300. It has created a “no roofs unused” policy, in which every roof will now be greened with plants and mosses or have solar panels.
via: The Guardian
Tesla Rolls Out Steam Game Support for Newest Vehicle Models–>
The newest models of Tesla’s electric vehicles are now Steam-powered. And by that, of course, we mean the vehicles’ central consoles can now access and play thousands of titles from Valve’s popular Steam gaming platform.
The new addition, part of Tesla’s 2022.44.25.1 “holiday update,” is currently only available on the high-end “new” Model S and X vehicles Tesla released in 2022, each of which includes 16GB of onboard RAM (though CEO and founder Elon Musk promised in a tweet that a “retrofit” will be available for older models). The release notes for the update suggest that those vehicles should be able to run any game that has been Verified by Valve for play on the company’s Steam Deck handheld.
I don’t own a Tesla. I am not sure what Tesla owners are asking1 for, but I bet Steam Deck games were not on anyone’s bingo card.
Via Arstechnica
The only thing I have read and heard several times is the biggest request has been for CarPlay.↩︎
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