tl;dr: Consulted with a friend's co for a couple of years before converting to full time with profit sharing to turn two PS-based projects into paying products.

tl;dr: Consulted with a friend's co for a couple of years before converting to full time with profit sharing to turn two PS-based projects into paying products. I was an independent consultant for almost twenty years. About 5 years ago, I started a contract through a friend's company, after reconnecting with him on a different contract the previous year (we'd worked together in the late 90s and early 00s). That contract was pretty much me bum-in-seat for a client. The primary role of my friend and his co were satisfying the procurement chain (government contract, easier to work within an established SO than to go direct). But he'd check in and we'd chat about how things were. About two years in, he asked if I had cycles to help on a different contract, so I started some part-time coding and customer engagement management. This went so well that we started talking about changing the nature of our relationship. Long story short, in mid-2020, I retired my shingle and went to work for his co full time. My title is Director, BD, but given where we are right now, with a hardware network security product and a software integrated risk and compliance product, the former released and generally available, the latter in private beta until September, my actual work varies. Anyone who has done early stage startup work knows the all hands on deck, whoever has the best skills, approach. Not sustainable long-term, but sometimes the only way to work early on, especially when funding is a mix of his savings and organic revenue. Today's a great example. First couple of hours were following up on yesterday's customer scrum (how did it go, what comes next, etc.), all internal communications, just enough words, somewhat informal. Next half a day was more formal customer engagement management with another customer, more formal writing, with more care to what was said and unsaid, and to expectations management. Now I'm in the middle of a brain break before switching gears to coding some performance improvements in the hardware product. The context switches are the toughest part.