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You're doing that thing I warned you not to do... I go to bed every night not worrying about whether my company remains sustainable. As do I. The key is to b

You're doing that thing I warned you not to do... I go to bed every night not worrying about whether my company remains sustainable. As do I. The key is to build the business to the point where it replaces your income before you quit your dev job. Once it's ticking away, there's very little that can happen over the course of the night (or a month) that can much affect its profitability. The same amount of money appears in my account every other week whether I go on vacation, call in sick, etc. Same here, with the addition of it still coming in if I decide to drop down to 20 minute weeks for the next year or so while focusing on something else. You're right about the Ageism thing though. I do still hop back into the working world from time to time (to keep the skills fresh and buzzword-compliant), and companies seem more than happy to hire an experienced guy to build things for them. But yeah, back to the point at hand: try not to scare yourself off by the "business stuff" of running a business. You can do as much or as little of it as you like, and so long as the product is good and your marketing is in place, it's just not a big deal.

mtberatwork 8y ago
> You're doing that thing I warned you not to do... > The key is to build the business to the point where it replaces your income before you quit your dev job. So your counter argument is for people to build a successful business on their own that will last for the remainder of their careers while working a full time job (and most likely while supporting a family and raising children)? Yes...it's just that simple.
- jasonkester 8y ago
  Close. It doesn't need to live forever though. Just long enough for you to build something to replace it. You appear sceptical, but it really isn't hard to do. There are lots of examples here that come up every time anybody asks.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    It’s called “survivorship bias”.
    - ipad23 8y ago
      I'm really tired of seeing this posted whenever someone talks about their success. It breeds a loser mentality where people just assume they won't be successful, so they won't even try.
      - cortesoft 8y ago
        So we should never talk about the possibility of failure? I think breeding a naive mentality is as bad if not worse than breeding a loser mentality.
        ScottFree 8y ago
        Bringing up "survivorship bias" every single time this topic comes up goes far, far beyond just talking about the possibility of failure. It's a self defeating mantra people use to justify their inaction. And even if it is "survivorship bias" and for every 1 example of someone that succeeds there are 1 million examples of people who have failed, the cost of failure is so low that you should try anyway. It costs you nothing and you have potentially everything to gain. Ever hear about the story of the two wolves? You're feeding the wrong wolf.
        scarface74 8y ago
        How is the cost of failure low? If you decide to go in business for yourself and it doesn’t make any money for 3 years, and you are just making non west coast salaries, you’re still potentially out of half a million dollars or more in total comp. And any money that you invested in your company. If you are talking about starting a business on the side and working full time, that means you are sacrificing some combination of time with your family, exercise, and time that you could be putting in getting ahead at your current job or acquiring skills that would help you get a better paying job. It doesn’t make sense statistically to take on “one million times the risk” unless the upside is much higher. These days, a CS Major can spend a year learning “leetCode” and study “Cracking the Code” and easily get a job at a FAANG making a quarter million - not that I would personally want to.
  - ipad23 8y ago
    many people just don't want to do anything besides coding. it's the reason there will always be workers and business owners. I built a business 5 years ago while I was working. The tech for it took me a weekend to complete and I had over a million in annual revenue within 2 years. Coding became 20% of my job, but I loved the new skills I gained and challenges outside of coding.
- RhodesianHunter 8y ago
  I mean if this guy did it than anyone can right?
scarface74 8y ago
As do I. The key is to build the business to the point where it replaces your income before you quit your dev job. Once it's ticking away, there's very little that can happen over the course of the night (or a month) that can much affect its profitability. And you’re still “managing” your business - the whole subject of the article was about people who didn’t want to manage. But yeah, back to the point at hand: try not to scare yourself off by the "business stuff" of running a business. You can do as much or as little of it as you like, and so long as the product is good and your marketing is in place, it's just not a big deal. It’s not that “I’m scared” of managing a business. I’m a proud MBA drop out, I have plenty of business acumen. I don’t want to manage a business. People were commenting about giving up management and dev lead roles because they didn’t want them - as did I. If I don’t want the headaches of being a dev lead, why in the world would I want the headache of owning a business and managing employees? You can do as much or as little of it as you like, and so long as the product is good and your marketing is in place, it's just not a big deal. You mean all I have to do is create a product people want, get funding, find the right people and then life becomes easy? Wow, I didn’t know it was that simple. Do you have a newsletter?

mtberatwork 8y ago

> You're doing that thing I warned you not to do... > The key is to build the business to the point where it replaces your income before you quit your dev job. So your counter argument is for people to build a successful business on their own that will last for the remainder of their careers while working a full time job (and most likely while supporting a family and raising children)? Yes...it's just that simple.

jasonkester 8y ago
Close. It doesn't need to live forever though. Just long enough for you to build something to replace it. You appear sceptical, but it really isn't hard to do. There are lots of examples here that come up every time anybody asks.
- scarface74 8y ago
  It’s called “survivorship bias”.
  - ipad23 8y ago
    I'm really tired of seeing this posted whenever someone talks about their success. It breeds a loser mentality where people just assume they won't be successful, so they won't even try.
    - cortesoft 8y ago
      So we should never talk about the possibility of failure? I think breeding a naive mentality is as bad if not worse than breeding a loser mentality.
      - ScottFree 8y ago
        Bringing up "survivorship bias" every single time this topic comes up goes far, far beyond just talking about the possibility of failure. It's a self defeating mantra people use to justify their inaction. And even if it is "survivorship bias" and for every 1 example of someone that succeeds there are 1 million examples of people who have failed, the cost of failure is so low that you should try anyway. It costs you nothing and you have potentially everything to gain. Ever hear about the story of the two wolves? You're feeding the wrong wolf.
        scarface74 8y ago
        How is the cost of failure low? If you decide to go in business for yourself and it doesn’t make any money for 3 years, and you are just making non west coast salaries, you’re still potentially out of half a million dollars or more in total comp. And any money that you invested in your company. If you are talking about starting a business on the side and working full time, that means you are sacrificing some combination of time with your family, exercise, and time that you could be putting in getting ahead at your current job or acquiring skills that would help you get a better paying job. It doesn’t make sense statistically to take on “one million times the risk” unless the upside is much higher. These days, a CS Major can spend a year learning “leetCode” and study “Cracking the Code” and easily get a job at a FAANG making a quarter million - not that I would personally want to.
- ipad23 8y ago
  many people just don't want to do anything besides coding. it's the reason there will always be workers and business owners. I built a business 5 years ago while I was working. The tech for it took me a weekend to complete and I had over a million in annual revenue within 2 years. Coding became 20% of my job, but I loved the new skills I gained and challenges outside of coding.
RhodesianHunter 8y ago
I mean if this guy did it than anyone can right?

scarface74 8y ago

As do I. The key is to build the business to the point where it replaces your income before you quit your dev job. Once it's ticking away, there's very little that can happen over the course of the night (or a month) that can much affect its profitability. And you’re still “managing” your business - the whole subject of the article was about people who didn’t want to manage. But yeah, back to the point at hand: try not to scare yourself off by the "business stuff" of running a business. You can do as much or as little of it as you like, and so long as the product is good and your marketing is in place, it's just not a big deal. It’s not that “I’m scared” of managing a business. I’m a proud MBA drop out, I have plenty of business acumen. I don’t want to manage a business. People were commenting about giving up management and dev lead roles because they didn’t want them - as did I. If I don’t want the headaches of being a dev lead, why in the world would I want the headache of owning a business and managing employees? You can do as much or as little of it as you like, and so long as the product is good and your marketing is in place, it's just not a big deal. You mean all I have to do is create a product people want, get funding, find the right people and then life becomes easy? Wow, I didn’t know it was that simple. Do you have a newsletter?