4 ms·

Retired now, but was a self-employed programmer for 35 years. Fortunate to get away from consulting and contract work (not recommended) and into developing and

Retired now, but was a self-employed programmer for 35 years. Fortunate to get away from consulting and contract work (not recommended) and into developing and selling my own software product (highly recommended). Marketing was much tougher in the old days. Finding a need and filling it was very lucrative. Be ready to turn on a dime. Don't get distracted trying to solve technical challenges you think are cool but for which the market is too small. Focus on what your customers really need (as opposed to what they think they want). If you truly enjoy programming, being your own boss is challenging, but done right can be a hell of a lot of fun.

nagyf 4y ago
> Finding a need and filling it was very lucrative Any tips on how to find a project idea? What worked for you?
sunday_serif 4y ago
That’s great! It sounds like you had a very successful career. Was it hard to find a niche to fill? Presumably as an individual selling your own software, you could reasonably find a very small niche and that would be enough to sustain you.
badpun 4y ago
This is a dream of many developers. Unfortunately, there are tens of millions of developers, and probably only thousands of ideas which can be done as a one-man shop. Also, the market for tools for the one area in which all of us have expertise (programming) have long been been destroyed by race to the bottom price-wise, culminating in everything just becoming open source.
karanveer 4y ago
thank you for this, im kind of burnt out since a few years in contract work…so i understand this somewhat however i also thank you for briefly providing your 35+ years of xp into a brief para. if you have more on your journey and how it was different 35 years ago in the software i would definitely be interested to listen and learn more. I’m sure i’m not the only one intrigued..

nagyf 4y ago

> Finding a need and filling it was very lucrative Any tips on how to find a project idea? What worked for you?

sunday_serif 4y ago

That’s great! It sounds like you had a very successful career. Was it hard to find a niche to fill? Presumably as an individual selling your own software, you could reasonably find a very small niche and that would be enough to sustain you.

badpun 4y ago

This is a dream of many developers. Unfortunately, there are tens of millions of developers, and probably only thousands of ideas which can be done as a one-man shop. Also, the market for tools for the one area in which all of us have expertise (programming) have long been been destroyed by race to the bottom price-wise, culminating in everything just becoming open source.

karanveer 4y ago

thank you for this, im kind of burnt out since a few years in contract work…so i understand this somewhat however i also thank you for briefly providing your 35+ years of xp into a brief para. if you have more on your journey and how it was different 35 years ago in the software i would definitely be interested to listen and learn more. I’m sure i’m not the only one intrigued..