Post ERE Dream Job

Favorite quotations, etc.
seanbrenna
Posts: 42
Joined: Sun Aug 11, 2013 6:31 pm
Location: Boston Suburbs

Re: Post ERE Dream Job

Post by seanbrenna »

I would like to teach brazilian jiu jitsu... I'd have to get back in shape and train for about another year or two before I would qualify

riparian
Posts: 650
Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:00 am

Re: Post ERE Dream Job

Post by riparian »

I mostly want to continue doing the things I'm already doing, but with the time and money to be much better and specialized to an extent that would be less marketable in most cases.

Like, instead of throwing together a couple good enough books a year to keep making money, I'd like to go to all kinds of writing retreats and seminars and spend a couple years polishing my masterpiece.

In my old business... I'd like to actually travel and get all these fancy certifications and trainings and then only offer a very unique specialized service in an exotic location, but that's probably a barely break even proposition.

Then again, now that I'm in grad school I'd kinda just like to live in the woods and write papers...

LonerMatt
Posts: 239
Joined: Tue Sep 20, 2011 3:49 am

Re: Post ERE Dream Job

Post by LonerMatt »

Music/film/restaurant reviewer.

Travel writer.

Documentary maker - as long as I don't have to edit.

leeholsen
Posts: 325
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 6:38 pm

Re: Post ERE Dream Job

Post by leeholsen »

although its not as rewarding as being a musician or a private pilot or part of an charitable organization(all things i've considered), i'd like to work retail in a ski town and love to work in a restaurant on the mountain.

growing up in flat Houston, to this day; mountains are still awesome every time and i could be watch storms come thru a mountain valley every day of the week and talk all day long with others about what they skied and where the good spots are.

OTCW
Posts: 437
Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2011 12:55 am

Re: Post ERE Dream Job

Post by OTCW »

Cartoonist, short story writer, consulting Engineer ( with a narrow, limited focus of only the work I enjoy now, and NO needless paperwork/forms/meetings/assorted other nonsense), handyman, investor, Ebay seller, and beyond that maybe work one day a week in a hardware store.

Ian
Posts: 249
Joined: Sun Sep 22, 2013 2:54 am
Location: South Korea

Re: Post ERE Dream Job

Post by Ian »

Being able to spend my time on creative pursuits whether or not they produce money has always been my primary goal - ERE is just a useful tool in getting to that point.

Writing can produce money, and it probably would if I attained any success at it. But of the top 1700 professional genre writers in the United States (the largest market) not even 200 make a living from their writing (data from 2007, so the changes caused by ebooks may have slightly increased the numbers). I think this is assuming generic middle class spending and investment patterns. Frugality and investments have the potential to entirely change the lives of working writers.

LonerMatt
Posts: 239
Joined: Tue Sep 20, 2011 3:49 am

Re: Post ERE Dream Job

Post by LonerMatt »

Running a shop dedicated to knitwear.

JamesR
Posts: 947
Joined: Sun Apr 21, 2013 9:08 pm

Re: Post ERE Dream Job

Post by JamesR »

My dream job would be a visionary & applied philanthropist.

Think: Paul Graham & his ycombinator.com startup. Or Elon Musk, serial company starter tackling big problems: Space-X (affordable rocket launches), Tesla (electric cars), Hyperloop (affordable high-speed transit between SF & LA), etc.

User avatar
jennypenny
Posts: 6851
Joined: Sun Jul 03, 2011 2:20 pm

Re: Post ERE Dream Job

Post by jennypenny »

We've talked about buying a lot of land for homesteading and teaching people homesteading/prepping skills. DH and youngest DS would teach security/weapons and solutions to power needs. My older DS wants to train dogs and be the resident carpenter. DD does MMA/boxing and would teach PT and self-defense, and handle hospitality. I would run the gardens and kitchen, help with PT, and focus on herbal medicines, food storage, and prep.

If we had enough land, we would set up several tiny houses so that people could come and stay for a week or two for training. It would be like homesteader/prepper bootcamp, with PT in the morning and then various classes during the rest of the day. Attendees would help prepare dinner every night, from harvesting what's needed to learning cooking methods that don't require power to learning different recipes. Living in the tiny houses would also help people adjust to the idea of downsizing.

We wouldn't expect to make money off of the venture. We would be happy just to support ourselves, live the way we'd like, and meet some people with similar interests. We would try and make the experience fun for everyone with games, music, and a library people can use.

1taskaday
Posts: 463
Joined: Wed Dec 04, 2013 11:45 am
Location: England

Re: Post ERE Dream Job

Post by 1taskaday »

A researcher on behavioural sciences.

The psychology behind why people do what they do in life fascinates me.

I would love to be able to write articles in psychology journals from my research.

Even if I got paid nothing for doing this I would count myself lucky to be doing it-it is a total passion of mine, analysing people and finding out what makes them "tick" or even "thick".

Naturally I would set my own work hours and deadlines ,meet nobody mostly and surf during all my free time.

User avatar
Ego
Posts: 6357
Joined: Wed Nov 23, 2011 12:42 am

Re: Post ERE Dream Job

Post by Ego »

Here is a good post ere dream job. Apparently there is a severe shortage.....
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.1616801

User avatar
jennypenny
Posts: 6851
Joined: Sun Jul 03, 2011 2:20 pm

Re: Post ERE Dream Job

Post by jennypenny »

Not in Washington...

Tyler9000
Posts: 1758
Joined: Fri Jun 01, 2012 11:45 pm

Re: Post ERE Dream Job

Post by Tyler9000 »

I'm officially on board with Seneca's Keck gig. That sounds awesome.

I'd also love to become a recognized artist. My meager skills have atrophied over the years, but it's something I look forward to applying myself towards.

And being a quant geek for a pro basketball team would be fun. The things they track with stats toady are fascinating.

workathome
Posts: 1298
Joined: Sat Jun 29, 2013 3:06 pm

Re: Post ERE Dream Job

Post by workathome »

Feeling more burnt out. Actually the idea of no-job and just daily free reading with a dose of child rearing and exercise sounds good.

Hankaroundtheworld
Posts: 470
Joined: Mon Feb 24, 2014 4:50 am

Re: Post ERE Dream Job

Post by Hankaroundtheworld »

Dreams:
* I truly love adventures with a group of people, like exploring nature in a remote part of the world (and making a documentary with the team),
* or discovering new ideas that will come from science (gene technology, robotics, Nano technology, etc...), including doing a course at the Singularity university ...
* Being part of creating a science fiction movie
* Building an online business (no idea yet .... but I hope the ideas will come when I am free from Corporate life)

TheLuckyWizard
Posts: 66
Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2011 11:35 pm
Contact:

Re: Post ERE Dream Job

Post by TheLuckyWizard »

A damn shame about the clowns :cry:

User avatar
Ego
Posts: 6357
Joined: Wed Nov 23, 2011 12:42 am

Re: Post ERE Dream Job

Post by Ego »

Last month Mrs. Ego completed the TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) certification. She had the option of doing the practical training portion of the certification at the school where she was certified but decided to try a few other schools in the area, one of which is generally considered the industry leader. Turns out they liked her and hired her for an interesting position.

They have a program where individual international students spend the morning in the classroom then go around town to the theater or to tourist attractions three afternoons or evenings per week. Typically it is one student with one leader and they are almost always women. She is only leading the afternoon around-town portion of the class and expects the assignments to be sporadic, which is perfect because she will remain an employee with this well know organization and be able to claim the full employment experience on her resume, without actually working all that much.

So basically she is a professional tourist, getting paid to visit all of the museums, shows and tourist sites in our town that we are too frugal to pay for ourselves and she's racking up professional teaching experience doing it.

Her first student is a lovely Italian woman who owns a Bed & Breakfast in a historic town back home.

SavingWithBabies
Posts: 882
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2015 2:50 pm
Location: Midwest, USA

Re: Post ERE Dream Job

Post by SavingWithBabies »

I have a lot I want to do before my dream job. I want to finish bootstrapping at least one company to the point it could support me full time.

Then I think I'd want to do basically the equivalent of Y-Combinator in the bootstrapping world. Basically, get bootstrappers more coordinated into a community that has momentum and the shared benefits of the network YC has created. If you don't know, a lot of YC startups are customers of other YC startups so there is a lot of network effect in the early days of the startups. But there is also a kind of private network of YC alums that is useful to be able to tap into. I think pulling bootstrappers together in a similar way could be interesting. The fly is YC is for-profit. The VC money greases the whole system. The whole point of bootstrapping is funding yourself. So without VC money, the underlying economics aren't clear. The other focus of bootstrappers is growing more slowly without having to sell massive percentages to investors. So maybe the focus would be on helping bootstrappers grow to profitability to the point they need more help to grow. But they could get that help and possibly investment without the poor VC terms.

I think the loudest mouth right now in the bootstrapping side is David Heinemeier Hansson. He created a popular web framework, Ruby on Rails, and has bootstrapped a couple of companies. He is fond of pointing out the benefits of bootstrapping over venture capital. There is a community around Ruby on Rails but not one around the bootstrapping idealism he often writes about. He also wrote a book, Getting Real: The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Successful Web Application (2006), with some other people he worked with. It's great. But it is too bad there is no bigger movement or community attached to these bootstrapping ideas.

To bootstrap, you need funds. To gain funds without investors, you need to save. One of the best ways to do that is to practice ERE. So there is an interesting tie in there.

Maybe it's a pipedream. But I think bootstrapping is a great way to start a company without some of the issues venture capital brings to the table. I think it's the better way to go. I think we need more people starting viable businesses that solve problems the Silicon Valley bubble doesn't even see. We need companies based on real value not cash-infusion driven growth the tapers off after the early investors have sold out. Most big startups are afraid to go public now. Maybe it really is too onerous to deal with being a public company today. Maybe there could be another market for bootstrapped companies that are graduating to needing investment that allows investment on an open market.

But all that is an awful lot of work. Maybe. But I have two young kids and I think if I can bootstrap one company, buy some land not too far from the city and have a hobby farm with a huge garden, maybe build a insulated concrete form house and live. That might be enough.

@Ego That sounds wonderful! Congratulations to Mrs. Ego.

User avatar
Chris
Posts: 773
Joined: Thu Jul 22, 2010 2:44 pm

Re: Post ERE Dream Job

Post by Chris »

SavingWithBabies wrote:
Mon Oct 16, 2017 9:52 pm
To bootstrap, you need funds. To gain funds without investors, you need to save. One of the best ways to do that is to practice ERE. So there is an interesting tie in there.
...
I think we need more people starting viable businesses that solve problems the Silicon Valley bubble doesn't even see.
I like this line of thinking, as I've had similar thoughts myself. And I agree that there are some glaring problems out there that can be solved with software, but they aren't being tackled due to blind spots created by the typical SV viewpoint.
SavingWithBabies wrote:
Mon Oct 16, 2017 9:52 pm
I have a lot I want to do before my dream job. I want to finish bootstrapping at least one company to the point it could support me full time.
...
But all that is an awful lot of work. Maybe.
Maybe no need to start a company right away? Perhaps an open source project. Write some software in the open -- with no prospect of making money -- and see if it can be useful to others. If it is, you're the best person to provide support. This is a tried-and-true path: MySQL, MongoDB, nginx, etc.

SavingWithBabies
Posts: 882
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2015 2:50 pm
Location: Midwest, USA

Re: Post ERE Dream Job

Post by SavingWithBabies »

@Chris Oh, I meant a lot of work to do the whole dream job of bootstrapping a bootstrapping community.

I'm already bootstrapping a company outside of my day job. I've been working on it for ~1.5 years now with a friend. I officially incorporated it a month ago so we could start depositing the backlog of checks from our lone customer. A rough ballpark is we need 40 customers we'll be doing really well (as in, could both do it full time w/ me having the same salary and him getting a huge raise). So we have to figure out customer acquisition. The good news is we know exactly who our customers are (like the actual people by name -- not segments). We "just" have to get good at selling to them. We can't risk turning them off so we have to tread carefully while we figure it out. We took on kind of a big project though so it's taken awhile to get the product to the point that it is useful and solving problems in a more efficient way for our target market than most other solutions. We have a potential customer waiting on a feature I'm working on now so hopefully, we can deliver what they want and get to 2/40th of the way :).

I've done the open source thing for a tool we needed at a job a couple startups ago. It was fun to see it grow. Over 700,000 downloads on rubygems! I've done some other smaller open source things too. It's definitely enjoyable. My current focus is single page applications with React so my stack for our startup is nginx, PostgreSQL, Redis, React, NodeJS with Koa (at first, I was just going to prototype with it but I actually love it with async await), some server-side queues, some AWS services (S3, CloudFront, SES) and Twilio (SMS). It's pretty amazing paying about 40 cents a month for AWS and getting all this value (server is hosted elsewhere for now, I might go for elastic beanstalk and more AWS services once it's a minor cost).

Post Reply