Jelly Austin

The January 17 Austin Jelly is the first stop on our coworking road-trip.

Thanks to John for suggesting that I cut the editing and get the story out. Now, preferably—it’s been all day.

Themes are emerging:

1. Where—those independents and employees who work alone in coffee-shops vs. those who organize into groups like Jelly vs. those who land in permanent coworking spaces
2. The road to here—straight out of school vs. through the traditional business landscape
3. The challenge of effectively managing a community of free-lancers (see Cloud-Management)

Let’s grab the second one and dig in.

Slice-and-dice the people at this Austin Jelly and you find patterns. There are two large groups of independents at this Jelly and one small interesting outlier. Group #1: those who went independent after time in one or more traditional companies. Group #2: those who went independent right out of school. There are perceived benefits on both sides. The perceived advantage of a stint in a traditional company is visibility, credibility, experience and expertise—especially in mature fields where experience and expertise factor in success. The perceived advantage of going independent right out of school is speed—getting to the desired destination (independence) sooner.

The moral, without telling you the story, comes from the outlier. The question of whether to start your own business out of school is itself out-of-date. Why wait that long? If you have the talent and the motivation, your first gig is no further away than Craigslist, or one of the other sites out there. A new global business costs no more than $50 to $100 a month and sweat. There were always entrepreneurs in college. But it’s never been so easy to avoid serving time altogether.

- Bandit