DougHughes.net

On Monday April 18th I submitted my resignation to my current employer. My wife and I decided it was time to venture out into the vast and uncharted oceans of self employment.

This is not actually my first time being self employed. I’ve been in business with Alagad since 1996. Through out most of college I was self employed and did quite well for my self.

Upon graduating from college it seemed more economically beneficial to work for someone else and I took the first job I was offered. Since then, I’ve spent many years working for other people. Though I always yearned to again be self employed, my time as a traditional employee was incalculably valuable. I can not begin to summarize the lessons I’ve learned.

The wonderful thing about loving what you do is that work becomes more than just a job. For me it became a passion and (to the annoyance of my wife) a hobby. Because of this passion for what I do, I spent more than 6 years working early mornings, nights and weekends. I’ve always maintained at least a few side jobs though Alagad and spent time developing products such as the Alagad Image Component.

Over the past half year I’ve become increasingly disenchanted with my current employer. As I began exploring other employers I ran into a seemingly insurmountable problem: The companies I wanted to work for required me to sign over all intellectual property I conceived of or created while employed by them. In a nutshell, they wanted me to give up Alagad. There were three problems with this:

1. My salary combined with my income from Alagad was a more than any of the employers wanted to pay. From my perspective, they wanted me to pay (in terms of lost income) for the privilege of working for them.
2. Giving up Alagad would be like giving up my child. I don’t have the capability to do that at the moment.
3. I believe that some of my ideas are worth millions, maybe more. I can’t simply give up all that value for a false sense of security.

So, after much deliberation and consideration, my wife and I agreed that it was time to step out on my own and take Alagad to the next level.

Over the next year I will be attempting to grow the contracting side of Alagad with contracts of all sizes. I will also develop additional products and services for a range of markets. Lastly, I may occasionally run on-site training for companies of all sizes.

If you or anyone you know are in need of some top notch (but affordable) contracting services please feel free to contact me.

Also, if you have any suggestions for products or services I would be very interested in hearing about them. If I take them to market I’ll provide it to you free of charge for life!

And so, here goes nothing