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What comes out when you ask yourself whether you enjoy building things or making money from ideas?

peterburkimsher 9y ago
I enjoy building things. I'm good at back-end programming and hardware hacking. I'm bad at art and marketing. Even making a "portfolio" requires everything I do to have a pretty GUI and a nice website. For many of my scripts, that kind of thing just isn't suitable. For my 20k Chinese restaurant menu project, I got a few likes on Facebook. One person said I should make an app. But what kind of app? Android, iOS, Mac, Windows? What is the app supposed to do that the website can't already do? Even if I make an app, how am I supposed to tell people about it? Paying for Facebook ads or Google ads seems like a waste of money, because even if the site gets more views, it's for free, so it won't pay for itself. This also restricts the type of project I do - I can't afford to pay for a server, so I code everything in client-side JavaScript and host on Github.
- hkmurakami 9y ago
  One more clarifying question -- it sounds to me like what drives you is to solve problems that you find interesting and challenging, and to have a decent number of people try it out and hopefully give you props for what you've built, how useful it is, how cool it is, etc. it sounds like "money" isn't a primary or secondary motivator for you, but might be used as a proxy for what you're really interested in? I'm asking this because imo really clarifying your desires is a prerequisite for nailing down the right path to realizing these wishes.
  - peterburkimsher 9y ago
    That's right. I do projects that interest me. I see problems in life. For example, not being able to read menus, making a map of the range of an electric bike, etc. I build solutions: my own Chinese translator + 20k menus. An offline map program that lets me draw a circle of a given radius. I have lots of these little projects. Money isn't possible, because I have a maximum wage. My visa & contract don't allow me to do side work. I wish that other people would benefit from my work, but I don't want to spend money to buy users, because they won't be paying it back later.

I enjoy building things. I'm good at back-end programming and hardware hacking. I'm bad at art and marketing. Even making a "portfolio" requires everything I do to have a pretty GUI and a nice website. For many of my scripts, that kind of thing just isn't suitable. For my 20k Chinese restaurant menu project, I got a few likes on Facebook. One person said I should make an app. But what kind of app? Android, iOS, Mac, Windows? What is the app supposed to do that the website can't already do? Even if I make an app, how am I supposed to tell people about it? Paying for Facebook ads or Google ads seems like a waste of money, because even if the site gets more views, it's for free, so it won't pay for itself. This also restricts the type of project I do - I can't afford to pay for a server, so I code everything in client-side JavaScript and host on Github.

hkmurakami 9y ago
One more clarifying question -- it sounds to me like what drives you is to solve problems that you find interesting and challenging, and to have a decent number of people try it out and hopefully give you props for what you've built, how useful it is, how cool it is, etc. it sounds like "money" isn't a primary or secondary motivator for you, but might be used as a proxy for what you're really interested in? I'm asking this because imo really clarifying your desires is a prerequisite for nailing down the right path to realizing these wishes.
- peterburkimsher 9y ago
  That's right. I do projects that interest me. I see problems in life. For example, not being able to read menus, making a map of the range of an electric bike, etc. I build solutions: my own Chinese translator + 20k menus. An offline map program that lets me draw a circle of a given radius. I have lots of these little projects. Money isn't possible, because I have a maximum wage. My visa & contract don't allow me to do side work. I wish that other people would benefit from my work, but I don't want to spend money to buy users, because they won't be paying it back later.