The Indie Alternative Part 1

 
Sometime back, I had the opportunity to speak for the ACM chapter (ACM="Association for Computing Machinery"; AKA "computer club") at my alma mater. After a bit of pondering, I decided to share with them one of the key lessons I've learned since I left college 13 years before (now 20 years), and tell them about "The Indie Alternative".
 
In short, the Indie Alternative is freedom. Freedom to follow your own dreams, to work on the projects you choose, to work with the people you choose (or work alone), and maybe, eventually, freedom from the tyranny of the paycheck.
 
Go to College, Get a Job…
 
For at least the back half of the 20th Century, the primary purpose of going to college seemed to be to get a job. And not just any job, but a well-paying job. And, maybe, if you were lucky, a job you liked.
 
The myth of working for a single corporation for your entire career was already dying by the time I started college in the fall of 1987, and had been shot quite dead by the time I graduated in the spring of 1991 (and found myself looking for a job in a recession). Still, the plum jobs were the ones with the biggest corporations, with the best benefits–especially strong 401k's.
 
The Internet Boom of the mid- to late-1990′s turned even that plan on its head, as college students dropped out, created startup companies, and became paper millionaires almost overnight. How could 3 weeks of paid vacation after 5 years with a company compare to the rush of an IPO?
 
Those heady days didn't last, though, and college has again become the post-high-school, pre-career refuge for people looking for stable jobs with adequate benefits.
 
But even though the days of venture capital firms gleefully throwing millions of dollars at any lame idea that crosses their desk have passed, there is still a whole world's worth of opportunity out there.
 
What I'm suggesting is: Do both. Go to college (or not, your choice) and get a job–and be an indie.
 
What is an "Indie"?
 
In the simplest terms, an "indie" is someone working on their own projects, on their own  time, for their own reasons. No one tells the indie they have to do what they're doing. No one is telling them how to do it. Being an indie is being you, and no one else.
 
Whether you want to make games, shoot movies, play music, write books, opine about the sad of politics, or anything else, you can.
 
That's the good news.
 
The flipside of doing your own thing, however, is that you probably won't get paid for it. At least not right away.
 
That's what the job is for. In case you were curious.
 
How to be a "Working Indie"
 
What usually happens after college? You get a job, you get married, you buy a house, you have children, and so on. The "American Dream", more or less, and there's nothing wrong with that path. But each step along that path tends to bind you tighter and tighter to your current job and its steady paycheck. Even if you skip the married-with-kids track, it's easy to get stuck in an earn-consume-earn-consume cycle because of "easy credit terms".
 
When we're in college, we dream big dreams, and make big plans. We're young, we're excited, and we have nothing to lose. After we graduate, though, and get a job, and get married, and buy a house, and so on, we do have something to lose. It's easy to become risk averse, to avoid taking actions that will threaten the status quo–and our standard of living.
 
I remember my boss at one job telling me how pleased he was to hear I was buying a house. And why wouldn't he be? A house means a mortgage with a monthly payment. That mortgage, along with the car payment and groceries and everything else involved with my standard of living, was yet another reason for me to show up at work every day, on time, and do what I was told.
 
But I was already a "working indie" by the time my wife and I bought our first house. I spent my 8-to-5 day working for my boss, and my evenings working on my own projects.
 
As a working indie, I was able to take advantage of "corporate welfare", in the form of a steady paycheck and employee benefits like paid vacation, health insurance, and so on (though, in this Republican-dominated era, those last few might be hard to find now) while taking small, virtually risk-free steps toward my independence.
 
You Are Not Your Job
 
The first step to becoming a working indie is realizing that you are not your job. What you do to the pay bills is just that: what you do to pay the bills. By working on your own projects on your own time, you take the first steps toward separating yourself from your job.
 
Too many of us define ourselves by what we get paid to do each workweek, just like in college we defined ourselves (and our future social status) by what we studied. In both cases, such thinking reduces our individuality and turns us into cogs in a bigger machine (the job or the university).
 
And who wants to be a cog?
 
Work to Live, Don't Live to Work
 
Once you've separated yourself from your day job, you will gain the perspective to see that you are working not to give your life meaning, but to provide funding for the life you really want to live.
 
This change in perspective also makes it possible for you to choose a job based solely on how well it fits your life. It makes it easy to limit the job's impact on your non-work life. Managers love freshly minted college graduates. Who else works so many hours for so little pay? But if this job is just how you earn your living, and you have a project of your own to work on when you get home, it's easy to resist the urge to clock 60-80 hours of salaried (exempt from overtime) pay.
 
Let your boss pay your living expenses while you handle the actual living on your own time.
 
Work for Yourself
 
Once you recognize that you are not your job, and are using your job as a source of income to cover your living expenses, you have become a free agent. You are working for yourself. And working for yourself is what being an indie is all about.
 
When you work for yourself, you choose the projects you work on. Which can be a heady feeling all by itself. More importantly, though, when you have completed your independent project you own it. It's yours. From first frame to last, from "Prologue" to "The End", from the title screen to the final credits, it's all yours.
 
Anyone who's worked in corporate America can tell you about long hours spent toiling on The Next Big Product. Weeks, months, maybe years, are spent completing bullet point after bullet point to come down to the final day. It's completed! And after the small in-house celebration, they get a plaque, a t-shirt, and dinner with the CEO (if they're lucky, the boss picks up the tab). And then they get handed the blueprints for The New Improved Next Big Product.
 
Welcome to the Rat Race.
 
Unless you own the company, you might as well get used to Xmas Hams and the occasional pat on the back as all the royalty payment you will ever get for your hard work.
 
If you own the result of your labor, though, you have a lot more options.
 
Don't be Afraid to Start Small
 
It may take some time, but you're young(ish). You have time. That's why retirement counselors like to show charts of the millions of dollars you could retire with if you just put $100/month in savings at 10% (gawd, those were the days, neh?), starting from age 25.
 
Being an indie can be just like that kind of investment: you start small, keep it up over time, and re-invest your earnings.
 
Your first indie projects may not show much financial return, but there are other kinds of rewards. For example, the pride of seeing your something you imagined become a reality. It's hard to beat the self-esteem boost of the simple phrase, said while pointing proudly to the completed project: "I made that."
 
Every completed project teaches you something about yourself while simultaneously improving your skills at writing, filmmaking, programming, or whatever. Experience is built by completing projects. The more projects you complete, the more experience you get–and the more intellectual property you own.
 
Sooner or later everyone has a hobby. Or several hobbies. What are hobbies? They're a form of self-expression that usually ends up soaking up both all your spare time and spare money. Why not pick a hobby that has a chance of paying you back?
 
Next Week: The Indie Alternative Part 2
 
Next week, I will continue describing the Indie Alternative, covering more of the nuts-and-bolts of being a working indie.
 
-David
 
NOTE: This was originally posted on my Joe Indie blog in 2004. At the time, I had be a self-employed indie for 5 years. Now I'm coming up on 13 years.
 
Related Posts:
One of the Perks (and Curses) of Being IndieThe Day Job Strikes Back!Focus-ish