Software development and cricket have always had a symbiotic relationship in my life, each shaping and strengthening the other. The confidence I built by facing different opponents in varying conditions helped me dive into diverse business domains and work across eleven different programming language stacks. Over the years, I've had the joy (and sometimes pain) of working in languages as varied as Golang, Kotlin, F#, Clojure, Haskell, Elm, Scala, Python, JavaScript, Swift, and Java.
For my cricket teams, I've always been the Swiss Army knife. I bowl both medium-fast and spin, bat anywhere from the top to the middle order, keep wickets, and field reliably. In short, I'm always willing to do whatever the team needs, depending on the match situation. I've built my software career on the same principle. From sales to coding, gathering product requirements from customers to leading the team, I jump in wherever I'm needed!
It's hard to separate cricket from my life. And like all things that eventually come to an end, I've often pondered: what does "retirement" look like for someone in the software world, our version of a cricketer stepping away from representing their country?
We usually associate retirement with age. But in my book, it's all about how much fight someone has left in them. If you're adding value and still enjoying the ride, why stop? For me, solving problems, writing code, and building software have been live wires since I was 12. I'm now in my late 30s, and I easily see another 30 years of meaningful work ahead of me. I'm one of the lucky ones whose passion and hobby turned into a profession, so it's never about how long but how much.
I am who I am because of my full-time jobs over the past 16 years. I'm incredibly grateful for the abundance of knowledge, experience, and financial stability they've brought into my life. I owe a great deal to the fantastic individuals who have shaped me along the way. Honestly, I couldn't have asked for anything better. I'm grateful for the journey that has brought me to this point.
Like a cricketer retiring from representing their country, I'm officially stepping away from full-time employment starting next month (July 2025). It's been a great ride, and the timing couldn't be better to unleash the solopreneur in me.
We often forget that our time here is finite and continue to pile things onto our personal backlog, vaguely believing we'll get to them someday. I've always enjoyed Doris Day's song Enjoy Yourself, where she playfully asks, "Imagine all the fun you'll have in your old rocking chair." I don't want to fall into that trap.
I'm in a phase of life where I want to optimize for time freedom above all else. By time freedom, I mean the ability to allocate my time according to my priorities, whether spending more time with family, pursuing personal projects, or simply having the flexibility to structure my day as I see fit. I've often felt cramped, trying to squeeze in time for the things I deeply care about, things I want to finish in this lifetime without regret.
Stepping away from a full-time job wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision. I've been pursuing my passion projects on the side for over five years, and now I'm ready to dedicate more of my time and energy to them.
What's next?
Making money is a skill, and the amount we earn is directly tied to the value we bring to others. Inspired by the ladders of wealth creation (Nathan Barry's model), I'm planning to focus my time on the last three: consulting, productized services, and selling products.
Image Credits: https://nathanbarry.com/wealth-creation/
Just as cricketers retire from national duty to play franchise cricket around the world, my immediate focus will be on offering high-value software consulting and development services to a select group of clients on a fractional basis.
In parallel, I'll lay the foundation for the other two ladders, build productized services, and create digital products over the next six months.
Of course, this transition isn't without its challenges. The uncertainty of income, the need for self-discipline, and the responsibility of managing every aspect of the business are real hurdles I'm prepared to face.
Wish me luck. 😃
