> So one of the ways I have slowly begun making my life work is by walking away from a zillion opportunities to be a chump and be helpful to people who will never, ever, ever, ever do a fucking thing in return for me.
I really hate this, and it's so stupidly common.
I constantly hear "How can I get so-and-so to do X?" and my response is almost always "Did you think about paying him money?"
And, when I deal with artists, it's sad how little money it takes to actually get the attention of people who are world-class but not celebrity famous.
I once had a discussion with one about why he was wasting time dealing with me (who will never be world class on my musical instrument) and he confided that I was the only person to actually pay him any money in the last month and a half.
I have kind of had this fantasy of doing economic development stuff and crowd funding it via Patreon and tips because a lot of the people who need the help the most can't afford to pay for it and my volunteer work the past couple of years has cast a lot of light on just how badly this space tends to be served by people supposedly trying to serve it.
I have a website, but it's only like two pages so far. I'm still trying to work out where I am going to go with this.
But there are local organizations that supposedly are doing economic development and I'm not actually seeing that happen. And I think it probably will not ever go anywhere.
I'm actually doing economic development, but I can't figure out how to make it pay. I run r/ClothingStartups and people are promoting their indie brands there, but being a moderator of Reddit doesn't pay anything. I run a bunch of blogs with useful info, but a lot of it is aimed at helping homeless people and poor people.
And it's very much needed and it's very much effective, but it still pays me a pittance. I'm not sure how to sort that out.
I don't know anything about that world, but it sounds to me like something where the money flow should come from grants. Are there institutions with deep pockets focused on the kind of economic development you're doing? Is it something local chambers of commerce would be interested in? If such things don't exist, could they be created? Are there state or federal agencies that might be interested?
Yeah, that's basically how it works. But the local non-profit organization doing that work and getting grants and the like is where I applied for a job, wasn't hired and then got crapped all over for about two years by the guy they did hire. It was completely unnecessary to make me his enemy because I was happy to help as a volunteer.
Since I am not going to get that job, I am trying to figure out how to do this on my own and make enough money at it to make it worth my while, knowing that the guy who got the job I applied for is likely to continue stealing anything I publish on the internet that he can use to pretend to do his job.
I have set up a reddit site called r/CoastalWA. This area is making national news as a relative safe haven in the face of things like climate change, but it's all small towns and unincorporated communities. So these are places that don't have a lot of funds to spend and anyone really talented tends to get a better paying job in a bigger city elsewhere. (The town I lived in interviewed a city manager candidate, offered them the job and they went elsewhere for more money.)
I have a background in doing volunteer work and my target market is people without a lot of resources, but I think it is important work. And any business has some stuff they give away for free -- even the multi-billion dollar business Y Combinator, which provides HN for free.
I kind of want to do what Y Combinator has done, only for small town and unincorporated communities and for mostly small businesses and micro businesses. So I can't use a VC model like they are using.
But if no one does this work, then outsiders with money will just come in here, buy up cheap land and piss all over everything.
I don't want to set up a non-profit. I would rather tun this as a sole proprietor and give away a lot for free on my website plus offer paid services and try to get it crowd funded by people willing and able to give a few bucks a month to a Patreon or whatever, but unable to pay the big salaries for a full-time local planner or the big fees for someone doing significant work on a contract basis.
I am still working out the details in my mind.
Thank you for engaging me! It is always good to have something to chew on or reply to. It helps me think!
I really hate this, and it's so stupidly common.
I constantly hear "How can I get so-and-so to do X?" and my response is almost always "Did you think about paying him money?"
And, when I deal with artists, it's sad how little money it takes to actually get the attention of people who are world-class but not celebrity famous.
I once had a discussion with one about why he was wasting time dealing with me (who will never be world class on my musical instrument) and he confided that I was the only person to actually pay him any money in the last month and a half.
I was completely shocked and appalled.