#50 One year of notes about freedom!

More to come!

Early May last year, at 5am, I was sitting in a car in the South of Iceland in the middle of the storm waiting for the car battery to charge. We were traveling around, and I woke up very early because of the noise of the wind. Nature always gives me a lot of inspiration, and that morning I somehow had plenty of ideas about what I could do as a passion project. 

This is how this newsletter was born. 

On Sunday, May 21, 2023, I invited a couple of dozen of friends to join it, and started writing. The whole idea of defining a professional success through a degree of freedom fascinated me, and I was curious to explore it from many dimensions. 

A month later, I decided to quit my job at Google after more than 10 years in product business development and strategic partnerships in EMEA. I wanted to find a new way of working, and explore how I could create value differently.  

One year, 50 editions and 10 interviews later, the newsletter accumulated close to 800 subscribers through organic growth and almost no promo. It is read by executives at Google, BMW, LVMH, Amazon, BCG, Microsoft, Balderton Capital, L'Oreal, Allen&Overy, Cisco, UEFA, McKinsey etc.  

What I learned through this experience is the following: people are curious about the freedom topic, but feel uneasy about taking the leap. There are few role models who seem far out of reach, while the ones who are closer seem to have less stability. 

The process is not standard, it seems impossible to find relevant benchmarks, while developing your own ones is scary. 

I am thinking of creating a set of practical recommendations that my readers can make while testing the waters from a safe distance of full-time employment. 

If you have any suggestions on what to cover in this newsletter from now on, please reach out! I am always curious to hear your feedback. 

Also, what a celebration without gifts? 

Anniversary specials! 

• Community “In Transit”
  People in transition reach out to me all the time for advice, we all agree that having an accountability partner is critical. I want to test an idea of creating a community of people who are going through change.
  
  Right now, I am thinking of an office hours format: a fixed slot once a month, people join the call, share what they have done, what worked, what didn’t, and the rest of the group shares their perspective. An alternative could be matching people in pairs for them to meet up independently.
  
  Please express your interest in joining it in this form before May 31st. 
  
  

• “Exit strategy” mentoring
  I am finishing an advisory project for a startup this month, and will have a bit of time during the summer.
  
  After months of saying no to requests, I decided to open three spots for paid mentoring.
  
  If you think that in a few years you might want to quit a full-time job and go independent, we can work together on preparing your exit strategy.
  
  We will evaluate your current occupation and the assets that you have, do an audit of your social proof and visibility in the industry, structure your networking efforts both for research purposes and product-market fit evaluation.
  
  The goal would be to start laying the ground for the moment when you decide to make the change.
  
  Please respond to this email with a brief description of your situation before May 31, and I will select three people for an intro call. 

I am very curious to see what the next year will bring to this project, and I want to thank again all of you for all your support, emails, comments, suggestions and encouragement! 

Until next time!

nat