Journey via

I almost forgot one incredible thing about yesterday: I was alert and functioning well for most of the 18 hour span I worked. Yesterday I coupled the Pomodoro technique with short bursts of exercise, keeping myself at peak alertness much longer than I would have thought possible. Of course, I also drank a lot of coffee.

This may not be too clear. After staying up till two, rising before nine to work, then working almost straight from 9:30 to 3:30 the next morning, I’m not at my most clear-headed.

Yesterday I was hoping to finish the project, but I had to postpone the deadline. Edits came through after eleven last night, and I knew I wouldn’t sleep at all if I tried to get it done. I have some breathing room now, but I’m not thrilled with it.

My professor in college (uni), Dr. O, warned about this. Next project I’ll put on an irreversible gate system where once something is nailed down and approved, any further changes will push the project deadline back and increase customer cost. I’m absorbing a lot of lost hours here.

But nobody ever said education was cheap. Enough complaining. It’s time to work.

After a fantastic day off yesterday, I was ready to go. And it’s a good thing, too — this mirror modelling job is due at 12:00 on Friday.

Next time, I’ll need my client to be more specific sooner. The job has morphed quite a lot and overall will have taken about 4 times the original proposed time. I’ll analyze for ideas on how to improve, but I know the problem is that the job grew as we went, moving from the original “just a couple pieces” to an assembly of 8 major components plus additional hardware. The scope wasn’t accurately enough nailed down at the beginning to protect from that, and I haven’t hard lined it at all.

Honestly, right now, satisfied clients mean more than hours, and I’m willing to put in the time for that. But I hope to be at the phase where I can avoid this soon; I don’t relish the though of too many 14 hour days.

And now I need to get back to this design, or I may not get to sleep tonight.

I stood on the edge, the water sparkling 30 feet below. “You can do it. Don’t psych yourself out.” But I already had. Then I heard the count.

3! — “I don’t know if I can do it.”

2! — “Would it really be bad not to jump?”

Jump! — My feet left the edge, I was absolutely free, my arms moving through nothing and my feet doing the same, then a plunge deep into the warm blue waters, and my head breaking the surface a moment later.

Friends help you take the plunge.

And Tuesday was awesome.

Alright, so I’m being honest here. I’m having a hard time feeling any enthusiasm right now. I just saw that yet another job I bid on closed without the client choosing a freelancer. This one is worse since they’d contacted me as one of their top three choices for the job, and I spent a couple of hours putting together a pretty detailed proposal. What went wrong? I wish dearly I could get a “Dear John” letter from each rejection, something that simply said “We’re not hiring you because of x, y and z.” But life isn’t like that. College is, but they don’t pay you to be in college. This is real.

So, one of my big goals for this month is to get better at writing proposals. I’m at less than 50% response rate, and again at less than 50% hire rate for those jobs where I do get a response. I need to improve those numbers or I’ll spend most of my time bidding jobs without profit. But how can I get better rates?

I don’t know yet. But I’ll definitely keep you guys informed on my experiments.

In other news, I had a beautiful day yesterday going up to the mountains, contemplating life and the direction of this next month. I’ve come up with 6 business goals:

1. Earn $1500 — $2000. This is a challenge, especially with a high stretch goal, but I know I can make at least one thousand in four weeks just repeating the success of the last two weeks. As long as I learn more this month than I knew 2 weeks ago, I can achieve this.

2. Bid 10 jobs per week and get response from more than %50 by the last week.

3. Get English students so I’ve got multiple streams of income and daily variety. I’ll also be working on a side blog that I started a while ago for ESL lesson plans, so teaching will help me generate useful content. My goal for the last week is 4 hours of teaching at 1000 baht per hour.

4. Finish my freelancing website and upgrade my ESL blog.

5. Spend less than $700 here.

6. Make a payment on my student loan. The loan is in default right now, so it’s going to take some paperwork to get things straightened out, but I need to start getting it paid off. My parents are starting to worry.

Alright, so those are the goals, and I’ll be writing each day about how I’m reaching them. Today I continued work on my second job incorporating the client’s design changes, I migrated my ESL blog to my new web host, I created a draft of handbills to advertise English teaching, and I got my freelance design website functioning.

More tomorrow. For now, I need food.

I just transferred $450 to my American account from my Elance total. So far I’ve earned $492 working there, and I still have a bit of work left to finish my second job, when I’ll get another ~$180. And I have only been an active freelancer for two weeks.

Three weeks ago, when I started poking around on freelancing sites to look for job possibilities, I never would have guessed I’d be earning money so quickly. At the time, I also wouldn’t have guessed that I’d getting to do something that, overall, I love. I suspected I’d be drudging through hours of work to support my independence instead of stepping into the nascence of my dream job.

This week is ending beautifully, but it was definitely off to a rough start. Last Thursday I discovered I’d left my card in an ATM. Machines here give you cash first and card second, so this is not my first time. I felt a bit foolish, but brushed it off and stopped by the bank the next day. But it was closed. I cursed the 4 p.m. start to the banker’s weekend and skimped to make it through to Monday.

Let me say here that my girlfriend did tell me to cancel the card. And if you ever do this, do that. I didn’t.

So when I got a new card on Monday, I discovered that my account had gone from more than 18,000 baht to less than 1000 baht. I’d lost over 17,000 baht in one fell swoop. I rest my head against the ATM bearing the bad news and felt completely discouraged.

The bankers said there was likely nothing they could do about the fraud, but I needed to file a report with the police and fax the report to a head office to even have a chance. A list of charges showed where the 17k had been spent over the last couple days. The f****r had spent most of my money at a club, with a little going to a trick auto store and a gym.

My girl helped me explain everything to the police, but neither of us had much hope. Just on the off chance, though, we decided to speak to the club and gym, in case they had any recollection of the guy.

We struck out with the club managers. They called the waiter who’d accepted the card and he couldn’t remember anything. They printed a copy of the signed receipts (f****r tried to copy my signature!). They wished us luck. They took no responsibility for accepting 10k of my money without checking an idea or comparing a signature.

But one of the waitresses told us to wait for her. We didn’t know what she wanted when she walked us to my scooter, and I was confused when she and my girl were speaking animatedly in Thai. Nin’ta said quickly to me, “We got him!” part way through the conversation, then kept speaking, much to my confusion.

The criminal was actually the waiter who ran my card. The waitress had seen him using it to by extra drinks, said that he had just bought a new part for his Honda and worked out at a gym. We knew who it was.

I rode away feeling like a television detective.

The gym had accepted the card for another month’s membership and had a copy of his Thai ID. A quick call to the club confirmed that it was the waiter. We knew him, had his picture, telephone number, email address — everything. I was shaking with angry excitement.

The police had found similar things, but hadn’t done anything. They promised to get in touch with him the following day.

On Wednesday I went in to collect my money. The only catch is, the boy didn’t pay, it was money from the club owners. Like all clubs here, they operate on the edge of the law, staying open later than is legal, and exist by bribing the police. And the police don’t want me to press charges.

I honestly don’t want to either. If I’d lost that money for good, I’d definitely be upset. It would change my life, tighten my already tight budget, and set me back on paying back college loans and saving for new adventures. But if I press charges, the boy will likely go to a Thai prison for more than 5 years and his life will never be the same.

I also don’t want him to get away with this scot free. He can’t do this again; I don’t want anyone else to suffer from me being too lenient, nor do I want him to feel like it’s okay.

So now I have a conundrum. If anyone out there is reading this, I’d be grateful for ideas.

It’s Saturday night and I’m on the cusp of another weekend. And I’m excited. But it’s not just for the break, like most weekends working past jobs. I’m excited for the work I did today, too.

Some months ago, while trying to generate ideas for products I could sell, I went back to the drawing board on a problem I’d had in the states. While there I wanted to buy kettlebells to work out, but couldn’t find them locally, and was nervous about spending the $150 to order one when I didn’t know what size I would need. Plus, I knew that often it would be best to have various sizes for different exercise movements. Why couldn’t they make them adjustable like ordinary weights?

Well, a search on the internet revealed a variety of options, all expensive, and none with the range of weight I would need. So this past year I sketched up an idea for a new style. And left it in my notebook, like most of my ideas.

But last week I came across a job where the client wants new kettlebell designs with decorative patterns. As much as I promised I was perfect for the job, with my long workout and design history, the client hasn’t contacted me back. It happens. But I really want this job.

So I’ve taken the time to research kettlebells and weights more, and finally finished the design I sketched so long ago. Even more exciting is the connection a friend of mine has to a weight manufacturer in China who could actually produce the design. Who knows, maybe this will be on the shelf in a year. If that happens, you can definitely expect an even more excited post.

Part of today, though, was working to stay proactive. Honestly, I’m worried right now – I don’t have any clients lined up beyond the one I’m working with, and I’ve only got one other potential “on the line”. I’ve submitted more proposals, but won’t likely hear anything back till Tuesday my time/ Monday US time.

There’s always a part of me that, when scared, wants to mope. But I can’t do that and expect to create a good business, so that’s why today I modeled my own designs and took a skill test. I’ll fight to do whatever I can to gain even a slight edge, and take the risks to be successful.

Bon weekend!

November 22, 2013. Mark it on your calendars, for today is the day I became a bona fide entrepeneur. Today is the day I actually earned money for my work.

Last night I received payment to start the initial work on a hand mirror design, my second job, which was exciting. But more exciting was logging in this morning and finding that my first client had both marked the job as complete and also released payment. Complete. My first job on Elance is done, and the client is happy.

And the second part of that may be much more important. For the first time today I was able to submit bids without being a complete newbie freelancer. I got full marks in my review, and I feel much more confident in placing bids. My first two clients will always have my gratitude for taking a risk on me, an inexperienced freelancer.

Alright, just a short post tonight. I had a late start today, and only got a full day in by working past ten in the evening, which should be time for me to spend con mi nin’ta. Buena noche.

P.S. – A favorite quote from a great, though short-lived, television show, Everwood. “Anyone can get what they want. But knowing what you want — that’s what seperates the men from the boys.”

I remember a discussion with a successful Engineer Solopreneur about his unusual method for determining the height of roads when he was doing the Civil designs. Instead of complex computer models, he used printed elevations, push pins and yarn. The simple method allowed him to replace days of small-screen computer modelling with a few hours of big-picture thinking and intuitive adjustments.

Thinking of that, when I needed to figure out how a tortilla could be shaped into a football on my first project, I didn’t make a model of a tortilla — I cut one out of paper and played with it. That paper model gave me confidence in the designs ability to shape, and saved me a lot of time spent in uncertain computer models.

Today I began work on my second job, and again I’m using paper, but this time to communicate. In past jobs I would have spent a few hours on the computer modeling or drawing designs so that I could communicate ideas, but I’ve decided to go back to low tech. Five minutes on paper can help me communicate the ideas I need to, and the black and white picture editing I described yesterday helps me make the photographed designs look right in documents, without the inherent shadows.

My (profitable) work today was to continue work on the first project, bringing it up to near completion, even with the additional requested work. Since my client wanted me to upload models for the 3D manufacturers, I first created a dummy email address, then created different accounts in each of the three 3D printing companies (Shapeways, Ponoko and Imaterialise). I’ve uploaded the files and communicated everything to my client; the ball is now in his court.

With my second client, I was asked to review an existing design of one part before beginning work on the design of an interfacing part. Everything is new. I’ve never done a design review, and it took me more than 50% more than my budgeted time. However, I now have a document with good flow and illustrating the more difficult to describe ideas. The review begins with thoughts on the design aesthetic, then details a review of each parts function that include questions and recommendations, where applicable. In the summary I restated the questions and recommendations so that my client has all of the actionable information in one place. I’m hoping it results in clear answers. We’ll find out tomorrow.

Yesterday I received a second message from a potential client wanting to speak on the phone. That was not a problem. What was a problem is that he wanted to speak at 3am. Well, to be fair that’s the middle of the afternoon his time. The problem is, though, that while I was debating whether to try to adjust the time or bite the bullet and wake up for a 3am conference, I fell asleep. And so I didn’t get back to the prospect for 12 hours. I haven’t heard from him since. Oops.

Another mistake I’ve made is with my first job. I’d read that you can often change an hourly job to a fixed price, which I would have preferred. But I didn’t ask. Not, I asked and was rejected, I just didn’t ask. I’m trying to complete the job as quickly as possible, and it now looks like I’ll actually finish in less time than bid, and will end up getting fifty dollars less for the job than originally expected. On the good side, that should surprise and please the client, and I’m hoping it will translate into a good review. So far all of our correspondence has been very positive. In challah.

I’m excited to soon be completing my first job, though still apprehensive until everything is complete and the money has been transferred and my review is in. I’m staying on my toes; this is all too new to relax now.

In other amazing news, I’ve been selected for a second job! This one will be quite a bit more complex, and involves more artistic design work for an antique-looking mirror with a modern functional twist. The client had me sign a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) this morning, and awarded me the job tonight when I returned back home. I feel both elated and very grateful; I’m doing the job I’ve dreamed about for years, and things are actually moving forward.

PS – I saved quite a lot of time today by using a photograph of my signature to sign the NDA. I wrote my signature on a sheet of white paper, photographed it, then saved it to my computer. The background wasn’t white enough, so I opened it in PowerPoint and edited it to be “black and white, 50%”. Only the signature stood out then. After I served it as a jpg in Paint and inserted the image into the PDF using a free online PDF editor. Voila.