4 ms·

> Why not leverage what you know and build web-based products/services? Because it's really difficult. I find I can keep a big-picture, this is what the custo

by porker 4y ago

> Why not leverage what you know and build web-based products/services? Because it's really difficult. I find I can keep a big-picture, this is what the customer wants mindset, or I can have a detail-oriented this is the code that I want to improve mindset, but having both and/or switching between them is amazingly difficult. As I write the code I lose sight of what 'normal' people (non-programmers) want. I don't even know how to pitch to their level any more, or what isn't obvious to people who haven't spent 20+ years using and thinking about computers every day. tl;dr: programming changes the way I think in a way that's unhelpful to build a product. Next there's promotion and marketing... which is another skillset that depending how hard you want to push the product may/may not sit well with your ethics. Thirdly and this is a personal one, I have an ADD brain and staying focused on one idea long enough to take it to market is very difficult. I have a list of ideas I dreamed up and started work on and never finished that someone else later launched successfully. As does everyone I suspect (execution >> ideas) but it's a neverending pattern (as I look at the 30+ OS projects on the go)

hsn915 4y ago
I've seen several people echo this, but for me it's the opposite. I start from the end goal and all the code is only there to serve the end goal. The end goal usually being the product and the value it's supposed to provide to its users. What I have trouble with is marketing and sales. I've never sold anything directly to consumers, so that will be the most challenging thing when going independent: selling to people. Let's say I sell the product for $50, I would have to sell to 2000 people in one year to make $100k, which means I have to sell to at least 6 people per day. Now it would be great if people just found the product and bought it on their own, but at least the first 1000 costumers must be acquired "manually" so to speak for the business to even take off.

by porker 4y ago

hsn915 4y ago

I've seen several people echo this, but for me it's the opposite. I start from the end goal and all the code is only there to serve the end goal. The end goal usually being the product and the value it's supposed to provide to its users. What I have trouble with is marketing and sales. I've never sold anything directly to consumers, so that will be the most challenging thing when going independent: selling to people. Let's say I sell the product for $50, I would have to sell to 2000 people in one year to make $100k, which means I have to sell to at least 6 people per day. Now it would be great if people just found the product and bought it on their own, but at least the first 1000 costumers must be acquired "manually" so to speak for the business to even take off.