I have gone countless rounds in the past few years on the topic of mini-businesses. The idea of coming up with a simple, single-product business that I can run under an independent brand, independent from my own face that is, is very appealing to me. Part of that appeal is the pseudonymity so that I don’t feel like it’s me on the line if it fails. Another part is the speed and simplicity: set something up in a few days, that’s a complete package, standardized, so I can offer it on-demand without needing to do any of the maintenance, marketing and other ongoing work a typical business requires. Basically I would set something up, set it on autopilot and only engage with it again if there is an actual customer that I need to provide the service to.

I’m back to this idea today, but there is a slight difference. The current iteration acknowledges that I don’t need to provide what I think is the best, most universally valuable thing I can, that it doesn’t need to be at the bleeding edge of my capabilities. I can set something up based on simple skills that are well within my comfort zone. I’ve been struggling for years with a pattern where as soon as I become comfortably competent in something I immediatly feel it’s not valuable anymore. This is not a business issue, this is an issue of identity and mentality. This current mini-business iteration is a step towards resolving this and becoming comfortable with just doing acceptable work, boring but simple work, something that doesn’t challenge me on a skills level. For many people this will sound like I’ve discovered that jobs exist, and I don’t think they’ll be entirely wrong.

Another aspect of this that I feel reluctantly proud of: I am inching towards setting up work that can provide an income, that’s based in what I can comfortably and easily do and separating that from my passions and ambitions in both tech and photography. I’ve been telling myself for over a year that I need to do this, that photography can be a calling but it doesn’t seem like an easy path towards it becoming a living. So now I’m trying to take a step into what could become a more sustainable model for me: a simple business for making enough money with not much effort and time and resources made available to pursue what I truly value but can’t seem to figure out a way to make a living off of.

Well, anyways.