vonadz

We've recently acquired a company that uses windows for a lot of their development (C#, Visual Studio, Azure, etc). Most of us use mac or linux, which has caused some issues with trying to set up local dev environments for the windows dependent stack. I've tried finding open-source alternatives, but it ended up being easier to just install a windows vm locally and do development on that. Unfortunately, even with 12 cpus and 16 gb of RAM allocated for the VM, it's pretty slow and laggy.

Other than getting a windows dedicated machine, does anyone have any recommendations for good setups to develop on a windows-dependent stack on linux / mac?

I'm normally a very optimistic person, but doing five years of bootstrapped startups and side projects with no major wins feels like I'm a pair of molars being worn away by a habitual teeth grinder. I feel like I've spread myself too thinly across a number of projects (a startup, a newsletter, consulting, another website, writing), but am having difficulties deciding on what to prioritize, what to completely drop, and how to approach deciding it in a structured manner. I think third party advice from a respected mentor can help get me out of the weeds.

How would you recommend approaching a mentor for this? Should I reach out via LinkedIn, personal email, or a forum like Reddit/HN? There isn't anyone in my direct network who I think "yeah I'd want to be where they are in 5 years following a similar path". Should I lead with these issues or keep it more general at first?

For reference, I'm the technical cofounder, but with all of the side projects, I've had a couple of years of part-time experience in marketing/growth hacking (ew buzzword, but just think growth with $0 spend) and sales too.