> I did try a coworking space but it has not been the best year to get that in-person experience. :) I'm vaguely looking into accelerators now but I'm naive so I'd kind of rather build a slow, sustainable, healthy business than get swept up in the mindset having a VC funded startup requires.
Totally agree on the slow sustainable healthy business -- If you're going to bootstrap then I assume you've heard of the MicroConf community? You might want to get plugged in there. At the very least they've got great resources on things bootstrapped founders care about[0].
I meant to suggest hanging around the accelerator because you'd find like-minded people, not necessarily entering it by the way -- for example working as a technical advisor or contributor to the accelerator (and/or the attached VC/PE firms) itself might be interesting and give you the latitude you're looking for.
> You're right and I misspoke a bit. There are definitely enough opportunities out there but you have to try things out and move on if you don't enjoy it. The last two contracts I had paid decently but I found the style of work completely demotivating. So I keep looking.
No worries, I do pretty much exactly the same thing -- if I'd known a better way I would have shared it. I can agree from experience that finding companies you'd want to work at for long periods is very hard, and even more so when you have seen >3 small-to-mid-size companies and how vast the difference in architecture, experience, coworkers, environment, etc can be (especially compared to larger companies).
It seems like if you have a very specific niche you want to target it's easier (i.e. try to be a patio11 type figure in one area that deeply interests you), but if you just want to find interesting problems that span areas/stacks/architectures, it can be hard to find companies that fit.
Totally agree on the slow sustainable healthy business -- If you're going to bootstrap then I assume you've heard of the MicroConf community? You might want to get plugged in there. At the very least they've got great resources on things bootstrapped founders care about[0].
I meant to suggest hanging around the accelerator because you'd find like-minded people, not necessarily entering it by the way -- for example working as a technical advisor or contributor to the accelerator (and/or the attached VC/PE firms) itself might be interesting and give you the latitude you're looking for.
> You're right and I misspoke a bit. There are definitely enough opportunities out there but you have to try things out and move on if you don't enjoy it. The last two contracts I had paid decently but I found the style of work completely demotivating. So I keep looking.
No worries, I do pretty much exactly the same thing -- if I'd known a better way I would have shared it. I can agree from experience that finding companies you'd want to work at for long periods is very hard, and even more so when you have seen >3 small-to-mid-size companies and how vast the difference in architecture, experience, coworkers, environment, etc can be (especially compared to larger companies).
It seems like if you have a very specific niche you want to target it's easier (i.e. try to be a patio11 type figure in one area that deeply interests you), but if you just want to find interesting problems that span areas/stacks/architectures, it can be hard to find companies that fit.
Good luck out there!
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHoBKQDRkJcOY2BO47q5Ruw