I have never pictured myself as anything but a full time employee at a company, where you work some number of hours in a week, usually only Monday through Friday, then come home in the evenings and relax, and get ready for the next day. And to be honest, I have missed that since losing my full time job last January. Since that time, I’ve been looking for an FTE position as a program manager, technical product manager, product owner, or project manager. So that is the type of position I have been looking for.

But a few months ago somebody asked me if I needed to “work for somebody”. They suggested I might make a good consultant. I’d never really thought of that, but did cause me to think of other things I could possibly do. I realized at that time that I’ve always had an interest and a competency for developing web sites. Around the same time, I was speaking with some friends who had indicated that they’d been interested in having a website for their small business, but just could no afford to, or were not technically able to make one themselves- nor were they interested in doing so.

So after spending the entire summer ramping back up on web technologies, HTML 5, CSS 3.0, responsive web sites, as well as content management systems such as WordPress and Drupal, I decided it was time I give this thing a go. “This thing” being a company that develops economical web sites of all types for small businesses, non-profit organizations, real estate agents, or any other kind of business.

The next challenge for me was getting past being self conscious about doing something like this. What if friends laugh at me? What if I can’t make something as good as a real web developer? What if my family and friends think this is a stupid idea? I’ve always been self conscious. Well, not always, but certainly later in life.

And so it is with great excitement, and with no small amount of trepidation, that I announce to you Sunset Hill Web & Consulting. SHWC will be a business that develops web sites, does SEO, and help small businesses by providing general consulting, all at very reasonable rates. My philosophy will be to leverage what people tell me are my strengths: my likeability, my ability to bring people together, to communicate effectively and be empathetic and understand what people want, while at the same time having the technical chops to sit down and get the job done. I will do all this by working side by side with my clients, utilizing an agile approach to solving their problems.

I don’t plan to stop looking for a full time position. As a matter of fact, as I write this right now, I am also managing a few leads for full time positions. I want to do this anyway, though, so it will just be a matter of how much work I take on.

So this will be a new adventure. Wish me luck!