Year 1

Three years ago I started my own solo consultancy: Karl Schmidt Consulting. I was just laid off. I was introduced to the concept of Fractional CTO, and was intrigued. I was also looking at roles at the time, but there were few and I was not finding myself interested at all. I was coming from a job that I really, really liked. So initially, Fractional CTO work seemed like a good thing to try while I did a longer-term search for a permanent role.

I didn’t expect that Fractional CTO/consulting work would be so interesting to learn about and do. It was a brand-new world to me, and I spent the next few months learning as much as I could, reconnecting with past colleagues and coming up with goals and deadlines for myself. Realistically I could only pursue starting my own consultancy for a few months without any clients, before it would be financially untenable. Later I’d read Thinking in Bets and learn that I was using “kill/quit criteria”. I landed a few clients so I was able to keep going.

Half a year in, markets started new downturns. I lost clients and didn’t get any new ones. This began a tough period that lasted almost a year.

Year 2

Things weren’t going well and it weighed on my mental health. I tried applying for full-time roles and that didn’t go anywhere. I didn’t actually want it to, I really enjoy working on a variety of things and the flexibility and autonomy of owning my own business.

I started writing daily to prove to myself I could build such a habit. I wrote at DebugBetter for about eight months. Unfortunately it had almost zero overlap with my main business so it didn’t move the needle there at all.

I started attending more in-person events and landed some interesting work. I built momentum in the latter half of this year. I got a referral to work with a major film production company for a technical due diligence project that was exciting and utilized my unique background. I would love to do more work like this in the future. I also did some “CTO rescue” work that summer for an early-stage startup that I was also very uniquely suited for.

In this year I also experimented with a video challenge, where I aimed to record and post a short video to LinkedIn and YouTube each day. I ended up averaging around one video every other day. I found it built recognition with folks but because of my lack of clear positioning, they didn’t know what I do or who I help.

Year 3

It started out almost at capacity, and a few months in I gained another long-term client. Since then I’ve been steadily busy, and am very grateful. This success has persisted to the beginning of Year 4, which I’m in now. I’m figuring out how to still have time to market myself and build some one-to-many products/services (training, courses, etc) so I can help more people at a larger scale.

During Year 3 I also took an entire month break from LinkedIn. Despite fears of missing out on opportunities, I found it helpful. I’ll be writing more about this experience in the future.

Learnings

Solopreneurship is tough and can be very lonely. Effective positioning is very challenging. Marketing and sales is challenging. As a solo, you have to do it all. Finding others going through similar journeys helps with comradery and with leveling up from their learnings.

I’ve decided I no longer offer Fractional CTO services, despite owning fcto.ca. I’ll share the reasons in another article.

I’ve been to many local events and a few local conferences. I want to start traveling for conferences and work, especially to Europe and Japan. I’ve heard speaking at conferences is helpful for building authority, so I will explore that.

Referrals have been very helpful, and I’m very thankful for folks thinking of me and recommending me to others.

Throughout this I have been mentoring individuals via MentorCruise. I find this very enjoyable, and I’m very grateful for the opportunity to help a variety of people. I am thinking about how to combine this work with some products and services like courses and communities.

I’ve kept up my health and fitness routines throughout this journey, which I think has helped me keep going. Most of all, unwavering support and love from my amazing wife Olya has been critical to my success.