MELO: Everything’s going OK?
PAULO: Yes it is.
MELO: What have you been up to? How’s it going?
PAULO: I tend to be ambitious, so it could be better. But I don’t complain. I’ve been doing what comes up. I decided that I wanted to leave behind everything I did in the past few years, which was basically web programming in Ruby and Ruby on Rails, because I fell out of love with it.
MELO: How did that happen?
PAULO: Because of several reasons. First, I’ve been doing that for about three years. Even before having a job.
And second, because web programming stopped being that interesting to me, for the simple fact it was no longer new, the work I did was like riding a bike.
But that wasn’t all.
Another reason was I wanted to do stuff that people could play with, and design and develop interfaces. I realized that the majority of people didn’t want to know if, for example, Facebook uses caching or AJAX or whatever, but everybody notices if something is hard to do or if there’s a new functionality. Maybe it’s not fair that the programming that’s behind it all doesn’t have so much relevance, but that won’t change.
So, I want to do stuff that you can interact with, be it designing or developing interfaces, for the web or on an iPhone or iPad.
MELO: So it was going from the technological implementation to the design of the experience that motivated going freelance?
PAULO: I always had this desire to do my own stuff, to choose the work I want to do. But I couldn’t, until I started to get a lot of proposals that made me stop and think: “Wait. I could live out of this.”
Then I found myself in this new freedom, and I decided I wanted to work hard in choosing the path I liked the most, which was experience design and the design of products and applications.
This was what led me into this adventure by myself, and that’s what I’ve been trying to do.
MELO: Is your work on Listary an example of this change of focus and vision? Do you want to talk about your experience on the development of the app and working with Portmanteau?
PAULO: Yes, it is. With Listary, I saw the opportunity to join with people I like spending time and working with, in order to create something that represented our vision of how software should be.
I’m not saying that in terms of just implementing or designing. I’m talking about deciding “This will be like this because it’s how we like to use, and that’s how we think a good app should be”. It’s a scenario of deciding on the whole, there are no sacred cows and all the work and decisions are debatable. Then, each one goes and works on what he/she likes the most. That’s how we do it at Portmanteau.
Ideally, we want to make applications that we use. Because in that way we don’t have to use them to try them out, we want to use them, because we need them.
I would very much do only this, but it’s difficult right now.
But the idea of Portmanteau is that we like to work together, so anyone can work in what he/she knows and likes best, as one can, and since we enjoy working together and developing apps we want for us, work becomes a dedication. Because it’s our thing.
MELO: Do you see Portmanteau as something that can evolve into a thing like a start-up or would you prefer to maintain yourselves in this more loose dynamic?
PAULO: Of course. Personally, I don’t really like the term start-up or company. Because nowadays it appears that the only objective is to “create a company”. I don’t like that. I want to make stuff, create it and put it in the hands of people. A company is a lot of the times the legal mechanism we need to do that. But it’s a means and not an end. At least to me. My end is to do stuff.
But getting back to your question, I would really like to live off this. But I don’t think it should be an obligation, but a pleasure. I very much want to make Listary and other apps at full-time. But if in a year from now I would feel like stopping for a few months and do something else, I want to be able to do it.
At the bottom of it all, I want to do what I enjoy, what I like, and be payed for it. Isn’t that what we all want? I’m just activity looking for it.
MELO: You’ve said that working as a freelancer is changing you. That it’s been strange, but rewarding and liberating. In what way do you feel that being responsible for yourself is changing you? What are you learning with all of this?
PAULO: So much. It’s changing me because now I control everything I want to do and learn.
In most cases, when working for another in a normal work schedule, you don’t get to do many fundamental decisions. But now, if I can, I can decide: “Do I want to spend the whole afternoon learning how to code for iPhone? Or do I want to read that book on Information Architecture?” Every day is a day to decide in what I want to invest in. In what I want to become.
Said like this, it may seem that I spend all the time reading and never working. That’s just an example. So many things have never been an option before and now they are. What do I want to do today? When do I feel like working and where? I learn so much about myself: When do I function better, when is it more comfortable to me…
And since there are so many decisions, so much uncertainty, I could be making HTML/CSS for a site and think “Is it worth it to spend another hour on this and do it in another way?”, “Is this work worth it?”. Since there isn’t that certainty that “Independently of it all, I’ll get my salary every month”, spending an afternoon improving or remaking something has much more impact. Maybe, you know, that thing could end up not being worth it. So I may do it well, maybe not in a such perfect way, but then I get two hours to learn something new. Or do something else.
I’ve never thought I would be 24 years old and get to decide so much. But it’s rewarding, because I can choose a path and succeed and grab opportunities that I’d have to reject otherwise. And even if stuff goes wrong, even if I end up banging my head against the wall, at least I went one way and did things.
Well, I’ve got nothing against a more so-called normal job, and one thing doesn’t imply the other, but the truth is that a lot of people don’t worry with “What do I want to be?”. But if they stop and think about it, being able to own their job is a marvelous thing.
Right now I’m talking to you and there’s a lot that I’m not remembering, and I’m sure that in a few months my concerns will be different, and that’s fantastic, because my concerns can be different.
MELO: But I bet it couldn’t be an easy decision, give up that stable monthly salary with the uncertainty of being paid, especially with our countries’ (Portugal) situation right now. Did you went for any moment of uncertainty in regards to your decision?
PAULO: Not yet, fortunately, but I think I will. Maybe not financially, but in terms of working alone. Working with other people allows me to learn and discuss what I do and most of what I’ve learned in recent years was just like that. Being at college, together with a bunch of people in a room, talking about everything. But if at anytime I have any difficulty, I can go back [to having a “normal” job], even not wanting to.
Nothing points to that happening, but I’m taking precautions, because not knowing what I’m going to be doing in three months is kind of scary as well. “What if I end up without projects to do?” is a good question, but that’s for future Paulo. And what this Paulo can do, in the present, is to be minimally prepared.
MELO: You’ve said a really interesting thing, that few people think about “What do I want do be?”. This is a problem that is dear to me and have written that I believe it’s kinda cruel to ask to a 15 year-old to pick his career. Are you, in any way, rediscovering yourself as a creative person?
PAULO: I think so. The other day I read something Merlin Mann wrote, that was “Never abandon your core competency”. And I though: “What if, if we don’t do that, we won’t discover something we would be better at? Or at least just as good? Or even not as good, but we would be happier doing it?”
I’ve discovered a lot of different things that give me pleasure, sometimes in a fortuitous way. For example: around a year ago I didn’t do any copywriting. I didn’t even thought that was relevant. Now, I think it’s perfectly normal to spend more that 15 minutes talking with people if a button in Listary should be called “Done” or “Save”.
Professionally or personally, I’ve discovered things that I never knew existed or were relevant. And, after all, there’s so much there. So much opportunity to appreciate and do good or bad things. And now I always think if I like to do what I’m doing, and if I want to keep doing that.
For me, what’s difficult is not falling in love with something. It’s to try something new, yes, but at a certain time to be able to stop and think: “Do I want to do this? Do I think I could do this better?” I tend to believe that if I try hard and invest myself, I could do a variety of things well. But now I have more self-control and more ability to “let go”. Yet, I still have that desire to know about more stuff. And I still deeply believe that people can do several things well if they want to and put an effort on it.
Now that you talked about it, you’re right and it’s totally cruel to ask a 15 years old kid what he “Wants to be”. I’ve never looked at that in light of what I am now, and it somewhat makes me laugh. Because it’s ridiculous to be completely certain. I always wanted to make websites. I learned HTML when I was 14, and I still do it, and like it. And still, I have doubts about what I want to be.
MELO: Joseph Campbell said “Follow your bliss”, maybe finding it is the bliss itself. The journey is the destiny and all that.
This is getting too philosophical!
PAULO: Yes, it is! *laughs*
But maybe, you have an idea if you’ll ever reach a point and say: “OK, this is what I wanna do. Always.” ? I don’t think so. And, sincerely, I hope not.
The other day I read a magnificent post by Frank Chimero where he said:
“I used to draw pictures and there are many that wish I would still draw pictures. Maybe I will. Probably. But, I have a new job. It is to make these words. There are those that say that by not making these pictures, I am devaluing myself, that I am some how running away from the thing that made them like my work in the first place. They’re right in saying that I’ve abandoned making images for a little bit, but I am not running away: I am running towards.”
I profoundly relate to that. I have friends that tell me: “Instead of programming, which was what you’re good at, you’re making little drawings”. And I smile inside. It’s that Shark theory that Frank also talks about. Smart guy that Frank.
MELO: Do you have any plans or it’s just what shows up?
PAULO: I have some. I’m gonna keep working with Portmanteau, on Listary, and in what we feel like. I’ll keep making websites, because they pay me for it.
And recently I was asked by Tiago Pedras, of ESAD, to be part of the teaching staff on the Post-Graduation in Webdesign that’s starting there.
So, I’m very excited. There’s a mix of new, old and undefined stuff.
And that’s good.
MELO: Yes it is. Thank you Paulo!
PAULO: Thank you Melo. Talking about these things was immensely better than I thought.
Paulo “Zoom” Pereira is a Freelancer and 1/4th of Portmanteau, developers of Listary, an iPhone app that makes it extremely simple to make and sync lists.
