This is my first blog post, in my first commercial website, of my first business. Consequently, this blog will be all about beginnings. I will try to share as much as possible the experience gathered on this complex and frightening business road from day one. (Turns out it's neither complex nor frightening, but I think we all start believing so...). I'm
Oded Ben Dov
and this is my first blog post:
I chanced to work in hi-tech right after the army and before the degree. Between 2003 and 2005 I was working at
Check Point
, and having a wonderful time. Since I was just released from the army, everything seemed euphoric - buying meals at restaurants, having cookies at 10:00 and 16:00, access to all the beverages I could want, and of course the large pay (We get peanuts in the army, my first salary was about 50 times bigger. No kidding.)
I left to take a degree in Computer Science, in the Technion, Israel. During that time I was still working on small projects for various clients - jobs I got from my Check Point and army connections. The more my academic vision expanded, the more I began pursuing wild ideas of my own. Suddenly being responsible for a feature in an application for some big company didn't seem too appealing.
(not me)
So I was getting more and more involved with my own projects, and got used to living by my own times. Suddenly working for all those big names that once were my sole goal in life, seemed like
Working for The Man
. Intel, IBM, Microsoft, Google (yes even playful Google) - all seemed like this golden cage that would cater for my daily needs, but at the same time have my brain hooked into this Matrix-style pipe, sucking all my free time, creativity, ambitions and dreams.
It was, yet again like Matrix, like waking up to a world where everyone's hooked to a machine that keeps them satisfied but no more. I couldn't understand how 90% of the population agrees to give up the better half of their week, for a cause that is probably obscured by layers upon layers of office bureaucracry. (Later I came to the understanding that not all people should and do feel like me, and there are people far more content than I am working in these big companies).
However, I was still a salaried employee, and I needed money. Only way I knew how to do it was go work for Intel, IBM, Microsoft and Google. So I applied to them. First to Google, then to several more others. But I was "smart". I demanded a 60% work share, so I could commit to my own 40% projects. Of course they "loved" this. Having a worker with a mind of its own is problematic in this world. The pipe doesn't connect properly, it wiggles, and eventually the employee's conciousness breaks out.
So they all rejected me, I guess for lack of enthusiasm. One of the HR couldn't understand how my examination results were so high, yet every interview I came out from she got a negative response considering me.
I guess that was my big break, because the only solution I could think of if no one was willing to pay me was - "sc*ew them, I'll find my own work". And that's how I became an independent contractor and started this business.
(In my next posts I will continue from this point, and share some vital facts and numbers for starting up businesses).
Loading...
