My Mondays have developed a steady rhythm recently. I spend a few hours volunteering in my neighborhood, then come home to work on my weekly email, LinkedIn posts and comments, and any outstanding outreach.
Last week, I was chatting with one of the regulars at volunteering. I mentioned I’d been working on my business and she said she wanted to help spread the word. She ran to find her phone, leaving me with a few moments to process.
Her offer was very kind. But did she even know what I do professionally? It wasn’t clear to me.
I don’t mean that I hadn’t demonstrated I could scale a containerized Python service horizontally to serve a peak load of 1k RPS.
I’m not even sure she knows I’m an engineer!
Compared to my old model of “prove competence → hope someone chooses you,” this felt unfamiliar.
I didn’t have to explain my past projects, or prove I’d Owned Systems that Delivered Business Value.
All I’d done was show up most Mondays for a few months.
If you’ve been around here a while, this sounds similar to my experience in Leeds last summer.
Could this same model work in business? And by business, I mean the smallest of business. The kind with just one person and a laptop. That makes Small Business Saturday look like a collection of industry moguls.
Maybe that’s what I’ve been building without realizing it. Not a company in the traditional sense, but a collection of relationships, conversations, and small opportunities that slowly connect to one another.
When my fellow volunteer returned with her phone, I typed my website into the browser. With From Scratch Code on the screen, I handed back the phone, a message in a digital bottle.
I’ll wait to see if this referral converts. Either way, I’m starting to suspect that trust works differently than I thought.
Speaking of showing up…
Workshop announcement
I’m running my first live virtual workshop on July 1: Build Your First REST API in Rust.
I’ve taught versions of this workshop at CCNY and LIU Brooklyn, and this will be the first time I’m offering it online.
I’m keeping the first one small (5 digital chairs) so it can stay interactive and conversational.
The workshop will be live, hands-on, and will not be recorded.
You can register here.
-Tyler
