5 ms·

It's interesting to me that you think you don't have the personal skills to "sell" yourself yet most of your business is centered around consulting and app deve

It's interesting to me that you think you don't have the personal skills to "sell" yourself yet most of your business is centered around consulting and app development as a service. How can these be successful without convincing people you know what you're doing? Do you work with someone who has those soft skills? Or maybe you mean something else. I can relate to a lot of what you said. Specifically, I've overheard people say things like "grog454 does it so how hard could it be?" when deciding to try to get in to software dev (they failed). 10+ years ago a talented comp sci major was openly hostile toward me when I spoke or gave a presentation on multiple occasions. I like to think I know what I'm doing. My personal software projects made me a millionaire before age 30 with no outside investment and minimal employees (0-1). Like you, I think I lack soft skills in the traditional sense of convincing other people that I know what I'm doing. I am routinely approached by recruiters for FAANG, and will occasionally begin the interview process just to see what it's like. In 4+ processes I've gotten to the final round of interviews but never received an offer. What I do have is a different kind of "soft skill". Search algorithms love me. I attribute the success of my projects and (apparent recruiter magneticism) to clever SEO more than anything else, followed by luck, followed by a kind of relentlessness with which I approach my work, followed by meaningful software dev skill / business acumen. 100% of revenue is from end-users, 99.9999+% of which have no clue who I am. I don't mean to come across as hostile, but its eye-opening to see what "I've always been on my own" and "not expect much from others" looks like to other people.

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
Actually, most of my business is not actually around that stuff. It's the shingle I hang, but I worked as a wage slave for most of my life. I'm now at the point where, if someone wants to work with me, I will do so, on my own terms, and try to make that clear, so I don't really get a whole lot of approaches (not surprising. I'm not complaining). I am currently keeping my dance card [very] full, working for nothing, on stuff that interests me. I would have been happy as hell to work for others at a fraction of the cost of many, as I don't especially care about the money, as I do about the working environment and project goals. I like working. I really do. I just get quite tired of having my work destroyed and hamstrung by others[0], so I'm actually living the dream, these days. Recruiters..love me...until they find out that I'm not young. Then, the call gets interrupted, and I never hear from them again. I've taken to just making sure everyone knows my age up front, so we don't waste each others' time. That seems to have stopped a lot of those types of contacts. And I have not "always been on my own," as I worked on huge teams, consisting of people all over the world, but I haven't found any team that was willing to cut me much slack. I've always worked in environments where I was expected to hold up my end of things without a need for much extra support. No safety net. The trapeze is all mine. [0] https://dilbert.com/strip/1996-06-02 https://dilbert.com/strip/1996-06-02
- grog454 6y ago
  I see I made the erroneous assumption that your living was based on your personal / business projects. I too was a wage slave at a relatively chill software engineering gig until my business became financially successful. The "always been on my own" was a quote from your original post.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
    Poor choice of words. Sorry about that.

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago

Actually, most of my business is not actually around that stuff. It's the shingle I hang, but I worked as a wage slave for most of my life. I'm now at the point where, if someone wants to work with me, I will do so, on my own terms, and try to make that clear, so I don't really get a whole lot of approaches (not surprising. I'm not complaining). I am currently keeping my dance card [very] full, working for nothing, on stuff that interests me. I would have been happy as hell to work for others at a fraction of the cost of many, as I don't especially care about the money, as I do about the working environment and project goals. I like working. I really do. I just get quite tired of having my work destroyed and hamstrung by others[0], so I'm actually living the dream, these days. Recruiters..love me...until they find out that I'm not young. Then, the call gets interrupted, and I never hear from them again. I've taken to just making sure everyone knows my age up front, so we don't waste each others' time. That seems to have stopped a lot of those types of contacts. And I have not "always been on my own," as I worked on huge teams, consisting of people all over the world, but I haven't found any team that was willing to cut me much slack. I've always worked in environments where I was expected to hold up my end of things without a need for much extra support. No safety net. The trapeze is all mine. [0] https://dilbert.com/strip/1996-06-02 https://dilbert.com/strip/1996-06-02

grog454 6y ago
I see I made the erroneous assumption that your living was based on your personal / business projects. I too was a wage slave at a relatively chill software engineering gig until my business became financially successful. The "always been on my own" was a quote from your original post.
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  Poor choice of words. Sorry about that.