How I failed as a Creator (for now)

What’s on the menu

My Solo Struggles

Self-employment has not been easy.

November last year I was let go from my dream job. It was a tough pill to swallow.

By chance, a great company reached out to me for a VP Product role in the same week I got laid off.

Career-wise, it would have been a step up.

A big six-figure salary and likely a large enough chunk of equity to be able to retire in the case of the company exiting (e.g. getting acquired).

A couple of (great) calls into the process, I had this weird feeling. Everything was looking perfect on paper, yet I didn’t actually want to take the job.

So I decided to send them an email, explaining that I decided to pull out of the process, in favor of going the entrepreneurial route.

I was burning the ships. It was scary, but it felt right.

Now I’m five months into the journey and it has been pretty hard.

The hardest part for me has been self-doubt and overthinking everything. Not having colleagues to bounce ideas off also hasn’t been a walk in the park.

My (old) plan

1. Build an audience of people who have similar interests and desires as me by creating interesting content.

2. Take note of questions and problems my audience seem to have in common.

3. Based on step two, build something of value for those folks and generate an income in the process.

That was the plan, at least.

My punch in the mouth was self-doubt and overthinking. Daily.

This held me back from truly breaking through the content barrier, increasing my output, and improving the quality as a result.

I am not a niched-down person. I’m the ultimate generalist.

Looking at my Youtube feed, you can see a mix of

• Formula 1

• AI

• Specialty coffee

• Productivity advice

• Apple rumors

• Habits forming

• Padel tennis

• Spitting llama videos

just to name a few.

My interests range far and wide. It was hard for me to pick one and ‘niche down’.

The result…?

Changing my Twitter bio a total of ~218 times over the last couple of months and having many, many ups and downs.

My niche problem

Not having a clear niche in mind was an obstacle for me. I was creating content, but I wasn’t sure about what.

The core problem is that I didn’t know if I wanted to be ‘The AI guy’ or the ‘The Productivity guy’.

So even after hearing the ‘don’t worry about your niche’ advice a dozen times.

I couldn’t break through it.

But yesterday I had a realization. Instead of going content first, what if I go experience first, content second?

Instead of sitting in my home office, just trying to come up with things to write, I should go out and experience solopreneurship, so I can tell the tale.

So what now?

I always thought that having a job was the safe and secure option.

Being laid off from my one single source of income changed my perspective.

I’ve always had side hustles and as a Product Manager for 9+ years which made me inherently interested in business models & value creation.

So starting next week Monday, I’ll be doing 30-day business experiments and building them in public. Sharing updates and learnings along the way.

The idea is to pick a business model and try to generate revenue within the 30-day timeframe.

I’ll document my process and share my learnings so you can decide if it’s something you might also want to try.

My objectives are clear

1. Start building revenue streams through the experiments

2. Share my journey and lessons learned along the way

3. Build a community of like-minded folks

Ultimately, my goal is to be able to work when I want, on projects I enjoy, while interacting with people I like every day.

Help me out

The reason I’m sharing this is that I want to make a change. I want to tell real stories.

That means I have to be honest and open about the results, my struggles and hopefully successes too.

If you are interested in following this journey, I’ll be tweeting more about the process and creating monthly Youtube videos about the experiments.

Check bento.me/arjen for all my social links.

Before I start, I want to gather some more ideas for business experiments and I’d love your input.

I created a list of experiments you can vote on below, with an option for you to suggest ideas also.

Here’s the Typeform if you are interested.

If you enjoyed this email, feel free to share it with a friend. It really helps :)

Cheers,

Arjen