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Shareware Amateurs vs. Shareware Professionals

27 points by aerique 17y ago

aerique 17y ago
A quick Google didn't turn this article up at HN before. I got to it through patio11's interview but I think it is so good it really deserves its own submission. It is scary to see in how many categories I'm still in the amateur column. I guess the good part is it were even more categories in the past, so at least there's some personal growth :-)
- teamonkey 17y ago
  I think it's quite an old article (5-10 years!). I remember reading it when I was an undergrad. Not a criticism, just a bit of reflection.
  - vlad 17y ago
    This article is at least ten years old; it certainly predates Paul Graham's essays and most of Joel On Software.
_delirium 17y ago
I agree this is a decent summary of amateur v. professional mindsets, but I can't help but think many markets (including games) would be generally worse off if everyone followed the professional mindset. There's tons of off-the-wall, innovative games that turned out to be popular, where the creators later admit they had no idea anyone would actually like it, but had made it just because they thought it was a cool idea. If everyone who thought their idea failed the basic-market-research test dropped it and found a new idea, we'd miss out on a lot of interesting stuff.
- richcollins 17y ago
  The only successful shareware developer that I know doesn't do any market research or marketing. (only one datapoint)
myth_drannon 17y ago
The problem with that dichotomy is that it never shows that at some point amateur becomes professional. Very few are born with business/marketing/whatever skills.
patio11 17y ago
Don't let the title fool you, this is applicable to web apps and the like as well. If you get one thing out of it, get the bit about funnel optimization. Multiplicatively effective improvements are almost as powerful as compound interest, which is itself the most creative/destructive force known to man prior to splitting the atom.
Mc_Big_G 17y ago
It's interesting that his iterations were all based on customer requests and one of the top articles on HN yesterday was "Why you should never listen to your customers.".

27 points by aerique 17y ago

A quick Google didn't turn this article up at HN before. I got to it through patio11's interview but I think it is so good it really deserves its own submission. It is scary to see in how many categories I'm still in the amateur column. I guess the good part is it were even more categories in the past, so at least there's some personal growth :-)

teamonkey 17y ago
I think it's quite an old article (5-10 years!). I remember reading it when I was an undergrad. Not a criticism, just a bit of reflection.
- vlad 17y ago
  This article is at least ten years old; it certainly predates Paul Graham's essays and most of Joel On Software.

_delirium 17y ago

I agree this is a decent summary of amateur v. professional mindsets, but I can't help but think many markets (including games) would be generally worse off if everyone followed the professional mindset. There's tons of off-the-wall, innovative games that turned out to be popular, where the creators later admit they had no idea anyone would actually like it, but had made it just because they thought it was a cool idea. If everyone who thought their idea failed the basic-market-research test dropped it and found a new idea, we'd miss out on a lot of interesting stuff.

richcollins 17y ago
The only successful shareware developer that I know doesn't do any market research or marketing. (only one datapoint)

myth_drannon 17y ago

The problem with that dichotomy is that it never shows that at some point amateur becomes professional. Very few are born with business/marketing/whatever skills.

patio11 17y ago

Don't let the title fool you, this is applicable to web apps and the like as well. If you get one thing out of it, get the bit about funnel optimization. Multiplicatively effective improvements are almost as powerful as compound interest, which is itself the most creative/destructive force known to man prior to splitting the atom.

Mc_Big_G 17y ago

It's interesting that his iterations were all based on customer requests and one of the top articles on HN yesterday was "Why you should never listen to your customers.".