Today is my last day of work until 2027. I’m going on parental leave for four months to welcome our third, a baby girl! She is due next week, which gives me just enough time to try and reset, recover from burnout, and attempt to catch up on all the little things before we have a newborn in the house again. 🫠

One of the biggest trade-offs of working for myself is that I can take as much time off as possible for life events like this. The downside? It’s unpaid. Most of my income is from active engagement with clients: building apps, advisory work, or maintenance retainers. Which means, if I’m not working, I’m not making money!

Yes, there’s an exception with the “passive income” products I run. Most notably, Ruby Native. But those are annual plans, so I’m not seeing any recurring revenue until mid 2027. Unless, of course, someone signs up for an account! Speaking of, I just went through a huge audit on the codebase, hardening it for me not being around for a little while.

So, what does that mean for the newsletter? In short, you probably won’t hear from me until 2027. So I’ve gone ahead and paused paid subscriptions for now. This means that if you are a paying subscriber you won’t be charged a renewal. I’ll make sure to let everyone know in advance before I turn them back on, so you’ll have time to decide if you want to continue your subscription or not.

What about outside of the newsletter?

Ruby Native cloud builds and deploys run without me, that was the goal and it’s achieved!
Bridge Components buyers have everything but updates pause while I’m out.
The Discord stays up but I’ll be slow to respond to individual messages. I’m grateful for folks in the community stepping up and helping others.
General support waits until January.
Urgent requests (e.g. “production is down”) will be addressed as quickly as I can manage. Just be aware I might have a screaming baby on the call with me. 😅

What can you expect from me, and this newsletter, when I return in January? First up will be an honest review of my 2026. This was the hardest year of my consulting business since I went independent in 2020. And I’ve had to adjust a lot in the past six months. I think I’ve found some things that might work in the future but I’d be lying if I said I have it all figured out.

The next four months are going to force me (in a good way!) to go on a lot of walks. I’m hoping to use that time to really figure out what I want next from my business. And which direction I want to take it. Most importantly, how can Masilotti.com go back to being a sustainable business, instead of always cramming an entire year of work into two months.

If you have thoughts, or ideas, or things to share… hit reply. Seriously! I would love to hear them. 👋

Joe Masilotti

Goodbye… for now!