I’m thrilled to announce that I am now an independent mobile app consultant, and am available to take on new projects. 🎉🚀 Can you help me find work?
For years, I have nursed a secret desire to quit my corporate job and become independent. For various reasons, both real and imagined (e.g. supporting a wife and seven kids, having a sometimes-crippling mental health condition, not deserving success or being good enough), I never allowed myself to pursue this.
At the end of 2021, I made the choice to leave my stable job to join a friend in launching a startup. Half a year later, we realized that having me full-time in the startup didn’t make sense, and I moved to a contractor role.
Because I had already wrestled with the risks and tradeoffs of leaving a stable job when I joined the startup, it felt like much less of a leap to make a go on my own for a bit. I’m comforted by the fact that my skills and experience are currently in demand, so if this doesn’t work out, I should be able to find another full-time job.
Identity crisis
One of the most difficult parts of this transition is figuring out who I want to be in this new role. What do I offer? What do I want to do? I still don’t completely know, but I at least have some answers.
First and foremost, I am a mobile app consultant. I have been coding off and on my whole life, and have been in software professionally for over fifteen years. About half of that time has been primarily focused on mobile apps. I have experience leading engineering teams, contributing individually as a developer and designer and architect, as well as in product management. I’ve decided my tagline is:
If you have or want a mobile app, I can help.
But that’s not all I want to do.
My experience with mental health, from living with OCD to presenting and speaking, has ignited a passion for mental health advocacy and awareness work. I continue to write weekly updates designed to help reduce the stigma of mental health at work.
A core hobby and interest of mine is sketchnoting. I have taught and presented on sketchnotes for over a decade and love doing that. Conference organizers have brought me out to sketchnote their conferences to provide attendees with a visual summary and generate interest. I want to do more of this.
Leadership development is another area that I care deeply about, and where I have spent time and effort in learning and growing. I have conducted leadership training and coaching, and feel strongly about leading with humanity and authenticity. I hope to help more people become better leaders as I continue to strive to improve personally.
Finally, and tying these all together, I love public speaking. The mingling that is often associated with speaking is one of my worst nightmares, but the process of creating and delivering a presentation excites and fulfills me, and the personal connections that can come from the mingling make it worthwhile. I plan to seek out more opportunities to give talks over the coming months and years.
How you could help
Like most people, I struggle asking for help. Through my mental health journey, I have been forced to confront my own inadequacies and learn the humbling skill of asking for what I need. So I will use this as an opportunity to practice.
Can you please help me find work?
If you are yourself, or know of, someone who has or needs a mobile app, could you connect with me? Or if anything else that I have shared, such as mental health awareness, sketchnoting, leadership, or public speaking, has resonated with you, could you reach out?
My business website is a great place to go or send people to learn more: bsn.design.
You could also send me an email at info@bsn.design, or schedule some time to talk more on my scheduling page.
For those in Utah, I’d love to take you to lunch and hear about you and your life, and how I might be able to help. I also have a scheduling page to make that easy.
If nothing else, I would appreciate you sending prayers or good feelings my way. This is a bit of a scary time for me and my family, as well as being exciting.
Thank you!
If you are reading this, I appreciate you for your care and support. It’s thanks to people like you that this is even a possibility for me.
Here’s hoping things work out well for both of us!