Early on in life, I learnt a rather oddball sort of lesson that shaped by professional career and allowed me to grow my native skill set in the most unexpected ways:
“Screw around [if you’ll pardon the expression] until you’re 40 – and then hone in on the one skill that brings you most joy. Make that joy your career path for 10 fruitful years — and by 50, you’re ready to retire.”
Such a maverick, controversial life lesson is obviously not suitable for all – but in my line of work, and in rhythm with my unorthodox personality, it has paid off richly with steep learning curves, high successes and low, character-building failures. Today, I am at the cusp of the golden age of 40, and I am ready to make a serious life choice that renders every stepping stone in my path to get here, indispensible and relevant.
I trace back my career as an entrepreneur to a time when I was working as an aerospace engineer with the American Air Force, building B1 and B2 bombers. This was also the phase when I was deeply fascinated by video gaming. I started playing Ultima Online, and discovered I could pawn gold inside the game, and characters and houses, and sell them for real money on Ebay.
People would pay cash for my stuff via Western Union (this was before Paypal) and I would make an easy $ 5,000 or so every month by spinning off my hobby into a micro-niche marketable commodity.
The world of marketing promised such incredible returns for a nerd who’s happiest when sorting, sifting and weighing data, weeding out bum methodologies and expanding the promising ones, that the world wide web seemed the most natural eco-space for me to thrive and contribute in.
When I got out of the Air Force in 2004, I moved from Texas to Washington to study existential psychology and ontology.
Why?
To better understand the psychological compulsions that convert apathetic, uninterested people into loyal, passionate customers. Given that I had a problem with authority and wanted to chart my own way, setting up a solid entrepreneurship needed solid understanding of people as well. So I went and got it.
The “screwing around” phase continued when I joined Wells Fargo Bank. While working with my banking clients and learning about business and finance, I found I was also drawing a roadmap for myself by learning from my clients’ mistakes and knowing how to steer clear of errors most people inevitably make as entrepreneurial newbies.
I took the easy way out. I simply did not make them.
The tipping point in my life came in [date] when I started a company called Social Power with two partners. Social Power was well ahead of its curve in the online marketing sphere, helping small and medium-sized businesses to shore up their obsolete marketing efforts and use their online presence more profitably and advantageously. We worked with a range of clients at this time, including health professionals, political party candidates and even the Palo Alto University.
It was while helping political candidates that I chanced upon a goldmine of information that was just waiting to be fully discovered and mined by online professionals like myself with a head for numbers: big data solutions.
I could foresee a time of high social and ecommerce engagement in the online space, when big data solutions would be the absolute need of the hour.
I partnered with a real estate team and we embarked on an ambitious project to create a mortgage and lead generation system. What I found was a data-based structure called No SQL — a big data structure that is used as resource by very large companies today. We had our own servers, so as not to use the cloud to aggregate real estate data. And we succeeded handily with the project — all our property sales in Western Washington were downloading at a speed that was faster than even the market leader, Zillow.
During this time, I also had floated Watson Ventures – a consulting firm that still helps businesses with data analytics, SEO, branding, advertising and every other aspect of an online marketing campaign.
The time was perfect for me to make the next great shift, which is happening right now with Mastodon Media. Partnering with Matt Rody and Alicia Ellen – two incredibly creative energies in the online marketing space – Mastodon is shaping into a full-service marketing solution that is getting bigger than all of us.
But my cut-off time is fast approaching. I have used up my 40 years’ allowance to learn data analytics from inside out. I have seized every opportunity to understand the challenges of small and mid-sized businesses, and I have grasped the unique compulsion of people who power and populate the online marketplace.
In a few short months, I will be at the 40-year turnpike. Watch this space for what comes next in the life and times of John Watson – a data-crunching, solution-seeking nerd, a blessed father of three beautiful children, a commited soulmate and life partner, and an enthusiastic lover of golf, bowling and pool…