Auditions

[SIGH]

Auditions... I used to be a performer, actor, singer, musical theater, opera. But I never liked the auditions. I've never really liked applying and interviewing for jobs too much either. I don't like being judged. To be honest, I kind of like me the way I am. When I went looking for a doctoral program, I thought of it like getting married. "If they're not in love with me, I'll keep looking." I guess it's that more than anything that makes me an entrepreneur.

But now I find myself back on the stage, standing cross-legged, and wanting nothing more than to visit the bathroom. Yesterday, I went to talk with a career coach. I got little more than advice on tweaking my resume. Frankly, I've gotten interviews... that's not the problem. But getting the job, that's been the hard part.

I've learned that nobody wants to hire an entrepreneur. They all think I'd rather be working for myself. And who can blame them? Last week, at a writer's group, after my reading of a couple chapters from my novel "The Chameleon" one of the other writers suggested I check out ACX.com, an Amazon site, affiliated with their subsidiary Audible. It's an exchange site for the creation of audio books.

So, I've got a few auditions out there. One's already been rejected. But it's gotten me active again. I set up a new voice recording studio in the office. I had had one setup in the upstairs apartment, but since I've been renting that out, I had taken it down. As my office is fairly empty these days (down from a staff of eight, to just me), I figured I could refashion the conference room as a recording studio.

That was fun, and I've been off and running this week. I've recorded six segments: four audition pieces, and a couple chapters from my novel. I've been recording myself, editing and mastering the audio. Not sure yet where it will end up, but it's something to do.

And as a bonus, it adds to my database of recorded voice. The research I've been involved in over the past several years, focuses on the human voice and speech technology. One of these days the world will wake up and realize that today's synthesized voice just sound awful (think SIRI). One of these days, someone will have the foresight and vision to start funding my research again. But for now, this is a way for me to stay active in my chosen field.

We'll see where it heads. Can't say it's a well-trodden path, but it's nice to be on it nonetheless.

Hills & Valleys

There are ups and downs when you steer your own course. I've given the advice to others enough times to always drive their own lives, that I must believe it myself.

But there are times, when I'd just as soon take a backseat, let others navigate, get out when the vehicle stops, look around, and pick up a shovel and pruners; a pick, bag, and compass; chef's knives and oven gloves... just about anything settled and secure.

There are times, when (Robert Frost be damned) I'd like to know the path before me has been well-trod, that it leads to a city, town, or village, where a warm body can get a hot meal, some labor and a payday.

The life of an entrepreneur, whether chosen or by fate (and I'm not sure there's a way to tell the difference), has its ups and downs, its Olympus Mons and its Mariana Trench. The trick is to stay in the cart when it dips and lifts of its own, until the steering mechanism is once again firmly in your grips.

Reinvention

I have been studying up. To be honest, some of the most enjoyable times of my life have been in the academy. Graduate school was a time of optimism and potential. Much of what followed was a disappointment.

After receiving my PhD in 2005, I spent a few years spinning my gears in the sand, sending out cover letters and CVs to hinder and yon, pouring my heart and soul into nearly every application, researching the school and position, making my case as best I could. I was miserable at the task, and miserable performing it.

Several years of that and a stint as adjunct, with the relentless prodding of a career/life coach I had engaged, I finally dropped the search and remade myself as an entrepreneur. That suited me (especially once I discovered SBIR, a program of the U.S. government that provides a means for independent researchers and small businesses to compete for a small slice of federal R&D dollars). SBIR provided funds for basic and early applied research for me and a small team that lasted about five years. Only, things have changed. Priorities in Washington and budget cuts have shifted the focus from basic and early applied research to latter stage development of already proven technologies. The buzz has morphed from "high risk/high reward" to "rapid innovation".

And that has left me and my team out in the cold. About a year ago, I let the others go, as I could no longer ensure payroll would be covered, and I've done nary a bit of research in my field since then. Lately, I've taken to reinventing myself again. I'm working on a novel (one that first took form as the seed of a screenplay intended to highlight the technology I was developing). And I've gone back to school in a manner. I've been taking classes on Udacity and Coursera, as well as other online and offline tutorials. I've been learning Java and improving my C++, as well as honing up on Mathematics which I'd not revisited for three decades.

I've been studying Lean Startup principles and other business coaching tools. I'm advising a couple other technology startups, and incubating a few other business ideas, unrelated to my research, that might sustain me and my family financially for a while, or serve as launchpads for other ventures. I'm keeping busy, and just hoping and believing that my spirits and ideas will keep long enough to jumpstart my income before our savings run out.

Fail fast!

I've heard the expression "fail fast" as advice for a startup. I begin to understand. In a sense, my success for five years in running my R&D startup was a case of failing too slowly. In fact, the reality is I was working on the research and formulating the ideas that eventually became my startup for years before establishing a business account. Properly speaking it was far more than five years.

One lesson I learned was to separate the vehicle from the driver. One difficulty I have had is that I identify quite personally with the research that became my startup. That's a problem in itself. Years ago, in the midst of building the first iteration of my company, I devised a metaphor that the company was simply a vehicle that I drove around in, that the important parts, my ideas, my passions, my experience, my knowledge, those were all things I kept in the glove box or the trunk. Once the vehicle got old and tired, I'd just take those things out, and move to a new vehicle.

While it's a good metaphor, I wasn't ready to learn the lesson I was teaching! That's because the company I was building was too intimately entwined with the research. Rather than keeping those items in the trunk, I had put them in the fuel tank! I was running the company on them.

I've started over again. One thing I've realized lately is that it's never too late to learn something new. I've been dusting off my programming skills, and decided to revisit mathematics after a 30 year hiatus. I've been sold on MOOCs, currently taking three classes on Udacity, and enrolled to begin one on Coursera later this month.

I'm advising a couple startups that other people have founded, and working on two different new ideas for startups I'm in the process of founding. The tech startup I founded 5 years ago is still around, but I've put it on the back burner for now, as I rebuild my chops. I'll jump start it again, when I'm ready to fail fast (or skyrocket).