Author: Rebecca Healy

My goal is to help you find meaningful work, enjoy the heck out of it, and earn more money.

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Notebook Start-ups Technology The Internets Uncategorized

Your Startup Probably Shouldn’t Exist

It’s always fascinating to see why a startup fails, always useful to see what goes wrong. Not everything can or should be a huge business, or “a big hit.” For that reason, I appreciate that Pando Daily reporter Erin Griffith wades into the deadpool to bring us stories, like how YC alum Tutorspree shut down.

Tutorspree graduated from Y Combinator in 2011, calling itself an “Airbnb for tutors,” reports Griffith. Basically, Tutorspree was a marketplace that matched a tutor with its tutee. Besides the glaring pitfalls in such a model, several of which Griffith outlines in her article, we should also be thinking about whether this startup was really worthy of a $1 million investment and $7 million valuation in the first place.

Our obsession with building “big hits” hides all the other wonderful opportunities to make a real difference in people’s lives. Aggregating existing exchanges, like tutoring, and trying to monetize off the backs of others isn’t world-changing. Founders should try creating and providing real value.

Journalist Noreen Malone argues in the New Republic that tech bubbles exist, but mostly to protect the relatively young, well-off, and like-minded generation that builds apps that don’t matter. “Tech is something like the new Wall St. Mostly white mostly dudes getting rich by making stuff of limited social purpose and impact,” economist Umair Haque argued on Twitter. Malone also quotes Mother Jones’ Clara Jeffrey: “I saw the best minds of my generation building apps to send sexts and brag about fitness and avoid the poors.”

Scale, for the sake of size alone, is a small ambition. When you get investment, from venture capital or angel investors, your entire company changes. Your goal is to seek users or sales at the expense of everything else. I have been part of startups that failed – or will fail – for this reason. You sacrifice learning, and as a result, you don’t build a useful machine. You don’t build a meaningful machine. You build a marketing machine (which most people will fail at, since good marketing is predicated first and foremost on a good product). But the strongest biz dev strategies can’t save a crappy product. The best sales people won’t conceal thin intentions.

SIlicon Valley is losing its ability to inspire. “Popular culture has soured on Silicon Valley’s hotshots,” Malone argues. And that’s because long ago, Silicon Valley lost its ability to innovate.

Want to create real value? Start here.

Categories
Productivity

How to Do Work that Gets You Noticed

Don’t get passed over for the next raise or promotion at work. Over at US News and World Report, I talk about seven strategies to do work that gets you noticed. You’ll find effective and efficient ways to get the job done, and discover how to prepare for a successful climb up the career ladder. Read it here.

Categories
Earn More

3 Salary Negotation Don’ts

When you negotiate your salary, you’re taking tangible steps toward greater self-worth, financial independence and career domination. Over at US News and World Report today, I talk about three salary pitfalls to avoid along the way. Read it here.

Categories
e-Commerce Notebook Technology

Art You Can Understand

Amazon now offers art, and has “partnered up with over 150 galleries and art dealers across the US… The site offers over 40,000 original works of fine art, showcasing 4,500 artists. That, perhaps unsurprisingly, makes it the largest online collection of art directly available from galleries and dealers.”

Creatives and critics don’t have high hopes.

“Is Amazon Art a doomed venture? Let’s hope so,” said economist Tyler Cowen. “One enduring feature of the art world is that a given piece will sell for much more in one context rather than another… What makes Amazon work for me is simply that they sell better stuff and a wider variety at cheaper prices. Why give that formula up by treading into a market where such an approach won’t make any money? Why compete in a market where an awesomely speedy physical delivery network means next to nothing?”

Well, because art and its pricing have largely been hidden and mysterious. Any time you disintermediate the secretive layers of a market, there’s value there. Despite a slew of art startups, fine art has remained out of reach both economically and emotionally for most people. The gallery experience is less than welcoming, and its traditions are largely foreign to mainstream consumers. Buying a couch, a new TV or appliance, getting a loan from a bank, or moving across the country seem easier than buying a piece to hang on your wall.

Amazon’s art initiative makes art more accessible, the pricing more transparent and straightforward, and yes, art more mainstream. Not sure Amazon’s goal is to immediately offer consumers the best price, but rather to commoditize art in a way the everyperson can understand.

But that still leaves the question of taste. Like fashion on Amazon, Wired Opinion Editor Sonal Chokshi said the art initiative won’t work for pandering to the lowest common denominator. “If you buy that the key to doing real fashion online is more merchandizing savvy than algorithms, Amazon hasn’t nailed this… Fashion — with a capital F — is inherently exclusive. You can’t be everything to everyone. It’s as much about what you cut out as what you include,” argues Pando Daily’s Sarah Lacy. Without a strong curatorial point of view, Chokshi says, art too will fail on Amazon.

Merchandising has solely existed on Amazon in the form of bestseller lists, recommendations and reviews. Amazon isn’t the expert, the algorithimic consumer is. That could be disturbing to those with a proclivity to self-ascribe taste, but it hasn’t hurt the sale of novels and books, a similar market where curation and word-of-mouth drive our current conciousness. And as far as fashion, I may discover a great shoe on a blog, but will search for the best price on Google. Consumers have evolved enough where discovery and point-of-purchase can be several clicks apart (see: the rise of showrooming). 

Worst case, however, Amazon Art adds several more chapters to the site’s catalgoue of everything, ensuring that you start and/or end every purchase on Amazon. 

Categories
Find a side job Finding a job Side Jobs

3 Cover Letter Tips that Will Get You the Interview

If you’re sending out endless cover letter and résumés to email oblivion, stop. Over at US News and World Report today, I talk about three strategies to make your cover letter stand out and get you in the door for an interview, where you can really shine. Read it here.

Categories
Career Engagement Future of Work Knowing yourself Self-management

Why Choose Passion and Purpose Over Short-Term Gain?

You have the option to listen to this post:

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Money is simply an exchange of value. On the one hand, that phrase allowed me to break past my money barriers a year ago. On the other, it’s complete horseshit.

At one time, money was an exchange of value. But today, when the top 20% of wealthy people hold 80% of the world’s stocks, something is wrong. It means that when companies maximize shareholder profits, they maximize profits for the wealthy and no one else. It means it’s hard to want to lean in or press on in a system like that. And yet, we know or we’ve been told, that financial worth is important. Our measure of worth is often measured in dollars. And Bethany Butzer argues, “if your passion doesn’t lead to a hefty paycheck, it’s viewed as a waste of time.”

Today, we live in a lesser depression, but the actual depression is deep within our minds. Our generation is sick, and overwhelmed with our immense privilege. We can do anything with our lives, and that’s just the issue. This existential crisis – what should we do with our lives? – has not only contributed to the quarter-life crisis phenomenon, but a deep and abiding angst and anxiety now bubbling over the surface.

Most of us sacrifice meaning for paychecks we don’t particularly like. And callings don’t always pay well (contrary to the zealots who argue if you follow your passion, money will follow), so the rest of us sacrifice security for a modicum of self-respect. These aren’t great tradeoffs. Sure, we all hope that at some point the economy will change and worth won’t be measured by the GDP (as Robert F. Kennedy said, “Gross National Product measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”), but in the meantime, we are stuck in between a rock and a hard place.

We optimize our lives for short-term gain, rather than long-term fulfillment. We suffer the “mediocre over the breathtaking,” because real net worth is harder and harder to come by and find. We suffer to keep up.  “We’re very busy,” argues economist Umair Haque, “ but we’re not better for it.” Fast is the only speed, because everything is a competition. Beat the other guy and prove your worth. Beat the other guy and have a better life.

The problem is “the problems of youth unemployment, underemployment, marginalization, and inequality are so pervasive globally, more and more economists are beginning to point to a lost generation,” argues Haque. “Our institutions are failing. They’re failing us, failing the challenge of igniting real, lasting human prosperity. If institutions are just instruments to fulfill social contracts, then ours are shattering because the social contracts at their hearts have fractured.”

As a generation, we’re not equipped for such wicked problems. We were trained in schools for corporate factory jobs, not for learning and discovery, not for testing and experimentation. And while almost certainly one-hundred percent of us buy into the idea that knowledge is power, that education is key not only to our own advancement, but the advancement of the human race, almost all of us stop that education after twenty or so years.

No one learns on the job anymore; the word “apprentice,” exists solely as a joke on primetime television. Every young woman wants a mentor, but few find anyone willing. Today’s employer wants the high-performer, fully formed. Companies don’t teach, that’s not the agreement. The agreement is you provide value for salary and benefits. But as people who routinely quit their jobs at Google or Booz Allen in search for something more will tell you, that’s not enough.

Mostly because what companies see as value isn’t connected to any larger sort of purpose or meaning. The purpose is to maximize shareholder profits, in most cases, and most of us intuitively know, even if we don’t study economics and or aren’t aware of the large inequalities of the system, that a purpose based on profits and profits alone is not enough. “Be the best!” is inherently just an axiom of “Beat the other guy.” And beating the other guy has nothing to do with maximizing human potential. It’s just about winning, and winning alone.

While writing Passion & Purpose, author Daniel Gulati says he “met dozens of recent graduates who, rather than applying their newly-acquired knowledge to solve important problems, had prematurely opted to extract value for themselves. Said one young executive: ‘I had big ideas when I started, but now it’s all about getting promoted to partner.’ Said another: ‘I know I’m just pushing paper. But I like getting paid six figures for working nine-to-five and ordering room service at fancy hotels.’”

We optimize for short-term gain, rather than extraordinary, difficult, heart-wrenching change that will solve social problems, impact the planet and advance the human race. “So you made a profit. Yawn,” says Haque. “Did you actually have an impact?”

Categories
Finding a job

3 Shortcuts to Prepare for a Job Interview

Preparing for an interview can be a daunting process, what with the company research, question and answer prep and general calming of the nerves and intense anxiety. If you’re short on time, but still want the job, I talk about three shortcuts to use to impress and show off your best over at US News and World Report. Read it here.

Categories
Work/life balance

5 Tips for Working While Traveling

Working while traveling, whether you’re on a business trip or trying to sneak in a bit of work while on vacation, can be incredibly productive and focused. Without office or home distractions, your efficiency can often go into overdrive. Over at US News and World Report, I talk about five tips to maximize your productivity while traveling. Read it here.

Categories
Earn More Find a side job Get a Raise Happiness Side Jobs

Don’t Quit Your Job Until You Make Some Money

To come to terms with opting out of your career, is primarily to come to terms with money. The first step toward leaning out is to get a raise. Maybe a side job. Also, max out your 401(k) and your Roth IRA. Fill up your emergency fund – and feel free to call it a “screw you” fund if it helps you contribute more. Because opting out? It’s best suited for those with money.

Our money paradigms  – often negative – say that those with a lot of it are undeserving, and came by it via luck (“the rich get richer”). And in times of enormous uncertainty, like now, we seem to be more comfortable leaving things up to chance. Things will work themselves out; everything happens for a reason. This sort of fatalistic thinking puts us in the depressing position of being in less and less control of our own lives. But we used to be a lot more self-reliant. We used to actively manage our lives.

“I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it,” said Thomas Jefferson. Luck used to be “perceived as something to be mastered, dominated, and controlled. It was not this weird external force that couldn’t be understood,” argues PayPal founder and venture capitalist Peter Thiel. “Today’s default view is more Malcolm Gladwell than Thomas Jefferson; success, we are told, seems to stem as much from context as from personal attributes. You can’t control your destiny. Things have to combine just right. It’s all kind of an accident.”

Le sigh. A big reason I chose to “lean out,” was specifically to ensure that my life wouldn’t be left up to chance. And I spent a good two years preparing, long before my “Enough!” moment. The financial viability of taking a break, and exploring your options comes with a price tag. Mine includes a six-month emergency fund. Plus, I have side income and no debt. Even though I quit my job, I didn’t quit my side projects, which I actually enjoy. So my six-month fund will last much longer, more like a year. I also have a fiancé, and together, we split expenses. Practically, if I lived alone, I would probably spend less, but psychologically, his support makes taking risks easier.

Fewer than one in four Americans have enough money in their savings account to cover at least six months of expenses. And fifty percent have less than a three-month cushion, while twenty-seven percent had no savings at all. Several people in the last category have told me they want to leave their jobs since my last post. Why? If you hate your job now, if you are stressed and exhausted, it will only worsen when you are sitting watching daytime television and have nothing in your bank account.

Take care of yourself. It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to make millions when you opt-out. You need to hustle enough to cover your expenses. And if you can’t hustle now, while in a job, by getting a side job, or asking for a raise, you will not be able to support yourself without the protection of an employer.

The first step is money. The first step is not to figure out what you want to do with your life. It’s not to discover your one true passion. It’s not to come up with a great idea.  Passions are fleeting. Most ideas aren’t very good. Learn how to make money. Start now. Build the habits. Money allows you to do great things. Money allows you to quit the job you hate, or keep the job you love. I’m not talking obscene wealth. I’m talking enough to provide for your later years, enough to make your current years nice, and enough to lean out if you so choose.

Luck, Thiel says, “defeats one’s ability to shape the future.” Don’t leave your life up to chance. Lots of things don’t happen for a reason, but many do, and for a very specific one – that is, because you made an intentional and deliberate choice. You showed up. You did the work. Don’t opt-out to live a romanticized artist’s or entrepreneur’s life with no money. Money does in fact buy happiness. Make some.

Categories
Accountability Career Knowing yourself Love What You Do Workplace

Opting Out of Climbing the Career Ladder

It was five weeks ago when my boss and I were sitting in a coffee shop and I told him I wanted to transition out of my position. The words kind of slipped out. I was mentally exhausted and tired. While certainly there were parts of my job – and people too – that I enjoyed, there wasn’t a day that passed where I didn’t think, “This isn’t what I want to do.”

Last Friday was my last day of work.

I wasn’t planning to quit, really. It seemed right to suck it up and keep going. It seemed responsible. But I told Ryan constantly that I wanted to leave. Many times I told him this was the day I was going to go in and do the deed. And many times I came home and told him, “Well, it was okay today. It wasn’t so bad.”

The job was a good one and I sort of fell into it, and not at all intentionally. I was making a lot of money consulting. I didn’t particularly enjoy consulting; clients are often just as messy as employers, but the money is better. And that was something. But I also craved the security of a job, or so I thought.

What I really wanted was to opt out.

I wanted permission to get off the career ladder. To step down, instead of up. I wanted to stop competing – with myself, with everyone, with society. I am leaving to do my own thing and to build my own business, but also decidedly to take a break.

Most people don’t have that luxury, I understand. We are bound by lifestyles and responsibilities seemingly outside of our control. And I view this period in my life as a last chance, or rather an opportunity, for that reason. Ryan and I are engaged, and soon we will be married and have kids and a house and many other things that don’t make it impossible, but certainly make it loads more difficult to try something different.

It seems weird that someone who has written about careers, practically her whole life since college, should then decide to opt out of her career. Perhaps those with the highest hopes have the largest illusions. I thought work was going to be great. There’s nothing more that I wanted than to work with a team toward a larger goal. I didn’t expect the constant power struggles. I didn’t expect the lack of meaning. I certainly didn’t expect complete and utter burnout.

Work has largely been a disappointment to entire generations, so I’ll take some comfort that it’s not just me. Seventy-two percent of American workers are either not engaged or are actively disengaged at their jobs, reports the Harvard Business Review. Those that aren’t engaged are “essentially checked out. They’re sleepwalking through their workday putting time – but not energy or passion – into their work.” And those that are actively disengaged are doing what they can to make life hell for everyone else.

The recession particularly screwed Generation Y, and the change we sought in the workplace just didn’t come. An open office isn’t a sign of advancement, for instance – it’s just an employer hopping onto another bandwagon after another. While seventy percent of workers sit in open-office plans, no one really likes it. Workers in open-plan offices get sick more often (due to a lack of privacy and stress), are irritated by noises from conversations and machines, and are less productive due to reduced motivation and decreased job satisfaction.

There is no real thought or inquiry that goes into what composes a great work experience. While I have no desire to sit in a cubicle for eight hours a day, I have even less desire to sit on display in front of twenty other people for eight hours a day.

Frankly, I don’t want to sit for eight hours in any capacity. I want to be outside. I want to lie down at 3 pm and read a book. I want to meditate. I want to go for a run at 10:30 am. I want to build something. I want to meet friends. Since when do we believe that being in one spot for our whole lives is meaningful? The Internet is a poor substitute for life.

I worry about our economy when our brightest minds sit all day. Maybe I am not opting out of my career, but opting out of every convention that we currently impose onto work. I saw Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg speak in Washington, DC and read her bestseller Lean In within just a few hours. Almost every page is marked up. The will to lead is certainly within me, but not like this. Not like it’s been in nearly every job I’ve held since my first paycheck.

While I have quit jobs before, it was always to climb the next rung. This time was an intentional and measured decision about my life, the first of its kind in awhile, and the first of what I hope is many. Too many times I have walked into doors that have been opened for me. Luck, some would say. Although I try not to attribute success to luck; success has come because I work hard, network and connect with the right people, and show up to the communities I’m involved with. In the past five weeks alone, I’ve turned down two jobs. I know how to make money. I know how to have jobs. I can see the path of a successful career ahead of me. But what I want is entirely different.

This time, I want to be present. I expect the rest will come. I don’t expect all roses; I know life is hard. I don’t believe in the pursuit of happiness without the pursuit of sadness. But I won’t be checked out anymore. I refuse to just go through the motions. I choose to lean in – but on my terms.

I think this is what they call, peace.

Categories
Work/life balance Workplace

10 Reasons Employees Work from Home

The nature of work is changing, and many employees are flocking from their bed to their desk in the next room to start the day. Over at US News and World Report, I talk about the 10 reasons knowledge workers choose to work from home. Read it here.

Categories
Finding a job Management Work politics Workplace

When to Quit Your Job

Not sure when to leave your job? A bad day could be just that, or it could signal the breaking point. Over at US News & World Report today, I talk about some good reasons to quit your job, and help you learn the six signs that show you should sever ties – for good. Read it here.