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You may want to consider a third option, one that has worked well for me: Solve a hard problem. This requires 3 steps: 1. Find a hard problem, with the emphas
by edw519 16y ago
You may want to consider a third option, one that has worked well for me: Solve a hard problem.
This requires 3 steps:
1. Find a hard problem, with the emphasis on "Find". It must be someone else's problem, not yours. It also needs to be big enough to be important, hard enough that the elegant solution hasn't been found yet, but not so hard that you'll waste the rest of your life on it. Examples:
Bad: Invent a time machine.
Good: We need a better e-commerce website
Better: We need software to build better e-commerce websites.
Best: We need software to attack this problem differently.
2. Figure out your approach (how) and learn what you need to learn.
3. Build it, get feedback, iterate.
Your problem is that you're not challenged enough on something important enough. Do this and you won't be bored. You will also know once and for all if this is really for you.
- csomar 16y agoJust to add: Make it Fun! That is travel, go to the nightclub, talk to people... all of that in relation to your problem solving (try to make even the smallest benefit/relation). Don't just put yourself in a tiny room coding 24/7. This should break routine, gets you new idea and keep you enthusiastic. (which seems to be your problem at the moment).
- throwaway31337 16y agoYes, this is indeed what I originally planned to do. Although I keep a book with the problems / ideas I have, none of them really motivates me (and I think there are about a hundred ideas in there). Given that there are enough ideas, I don't think the ideas are the problem... I guess this is the perfect solution, but I don't feel like doing that now. I have the time, some money, lots of contacts and no car, expensive house or girlfriend. I have the ambition to become wildly successful. I've spend the last 5 years reading a lot on startups, but I don't see myself putting in long hours of software development at this moment.
- 3am 16y agoYou didn't give a lot of hard details to work with, but based on this post, I would say find work outside of software. It's clear that you're not well suited to founding a startup - you don't have the a vision and lack motivation - and you probably are right that you wouldn't do well at a larger company. A number of people I know outside of software have great ideas for startups because they run into hard problems in their fields that they recognize could be automated, but they lack the technical talent to solve the problem. Maybe you'll be in a position to find one of these problems and be motivated to solve it if you find something you're passionate about.
- bluekite2000 16y agohave u considered living abroad? I spent 3 years in silicon valley and got burnt out. So i just moved to vietnam, opened a bookstore and outsourced most of the work. Then I just went out a lot and traveled a lot since Vietnam is close to everything (thailand,singapore,indo, hongkong,etc). Best years of my life by far:)
- cageface 16y agoI did exactly the same thing. It made a world of difference in my motivation. If you're smart and creative you need to mix things up occasionally. Vietnam is a fascinating place right now.
- bluekite2000 16y agoWhat? You opened a bookstore in Vietnam too? lol.
- pragmatic 16y agoWhy a book store and why Vietnam?
- bluekite2000 16y agoBecause vietnam is a friendly and loving country. bookstore because government-owned stores in Saigon sold really shitty English books
- seunosewa 16y agoIf Vietnam is not hard-core enough, you can try Iraq and Somalia.
- mattm 16y agoThis isn't the 70s. Sheesh.