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I love it. I've been programming since I was 12 (I'm 32 now). For me, the key to avoid burning out, is to constantly keep learning new things. I currently work

I love it. I've been programming since I was 12 (I'm 32 now). For me, the key to avoid burning out, is to constantly keep learning new things. I currently work remotely for a NYC dev agency, and we have a massively good team. I have a couple of side projects, and one of them is generating an income of $500/week. Just keep building stuff during the weekends. Try to learn marketing, UX, UI, etc. Apply those new skills to your side project, and iterate again. It's also important to not work in isolation. The most effective way to become a better programmer and keep learning things, is to pair constantly with better programmers than you are. I spend about ~14h/day in front of a computer. If I don't enjoy what I do, then I'd be wasting my life.

pknerd 11y ago
Is there anyway to contact you?
- juandazapata 11y ago
  `juanzuluaga` is my Twitter handle
disruptalot 11y ago
How did you fall into side projects like that? I've been doing some side projects and while I could comfortably do all the mentioned activities, I don't even dream that it would turn profitable one day. Do you have some sort of method to determine these projects you work on?
- juandazapata 11y ago
  I co-founded a startup and sold it ~3 years ago. There's no secret in turning something into profit. Just put your thing out there and ask for feedback. At the end, users won’t care about the underlying technologies used in your startup. They don’t care about what programming language you used. They don’t care if your website is a Single Page Application or you used Turbolinks. They don’t care if you have a micro-services oriented architecture or if you created a monolith. They only care if you solve their pain or not. And they will pay you if you do a good job. That’s all. If you build the wrong product, it won’t matter how many sound technical decisions you made along the road. Technical decisions are important to keep the team morale high, and to maintain momentum and speed, but your users don’t care about that. That's all there is. Really. If your users don't like your product, get feedback and go back to the drawing board. Iterate. Read a book or two about marketing, experiment and learn. Bad products win all the time, not because they are better, but because they are better marketed.

pknerd 11y ago

Is there anyway to contact you?

juandazapata 11y ago
`juanzuluaga` is my Twitter handle

disruptalot 11y ago

How did you fall into side projects like that? I've been doing some side projects and while I could comfortably do all the mentioned activities, I don't even dream that it would turn profitable one day. Do you have some sort of method to determine these projects you work on?

juandazapata 11y ago
I co-founded a startup and sold it ~3 years ago. There's no secret in turning something into profit. Just put your thing out there and ask for feedback. At the end, users won’t care about the underlying technologies used in your startup. They don’t care about what programming language you used. They don’t care if your website is a Single Page Application or you used Turbolinks. They don’t care if you have a micro-services oriented architecture or if you created a monolith. They only care if you solve their pain or not. And they will pay you if you do a good job. That’s all. If you build the wrong product, it won’t matter how many sound technical decisions you made along the road. Technical decisions are important to keep the team morale high, and to maintain momentum and speed, but your users don’t care about that. That's all there is. Really. If your users don't like your product, get feedback and go back to the drawing board. Iterate. Read a book or two about marketing, experiment and learn. Bad products win all the time, not because they are better, but because they are better marketed.