Building side projects as layoff insurance - Aaron Francis

On the 6th March 2024, Aaron Francis was part of layoffs at Planet Scale, where he was an educator. Since then, Aaron has had a hard decision to make: find another job, or take the leap to full-time entrepreneur. Now the job offers came in thick and fast for Aaron, with almost 600,000 people seeing his layoff tweet, but after documenting his thoughts on his own podcast, Mostly Technical, Aaron announced what he was doing next. He launched his own content studio, Tryhard Studios.

Links: 

• Follow Aaron on Twitter
• Aaron's Tuple Page
• Tryhard Studios

Timestamps

• 00:00 Intro
• 01:28 What it's like being laid off
• 02:05 Building a studio in an apartment
• 04:24 Why PlanetScale laid off people
• 05:06 The reaction to being laid off
• 07:26 How to increase your chance of getting a new job
• 09:12 Side projects as layoff insurance
• 12:29 Do side projects make you more hireable?
• 15:09 Aaron's existing money making side projects
• 18:24 Deciding to go all in and not find another job
• 23:11 Aaron's new thing, Tryhard Studios
• 28:01 Why the name "Tryhard Studios"
• 30:15 The business model
• 32:08 Dealing with the course promotion treadmill
• 33:29 What things haven't gone so well
• 34:53 Building a pipeline of new work
• 37:13 Preparing for burnout

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