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Quitting engineering to pursue art full-time
- jncfhnb 3y ago> In business theres a term called “Total Adressable Market,” or TAM. This is basically everyone in the world who could buy a product in a given category. What’s the TAM for a product like fishing rods? Well, that would be everyone in the world who likes fishing... > The reason we mention this is because when Pablo first started selling his art online, he created all his posts strictly in Spanish - his native language. Over time, he felt that this was limiting him, so he started making posts in both English and Spanish, and then eventually just English. The bit about cutting out Spanish entirely suggests this is not a lesson in maximizing one’s TAM
- tsunamifury 3y agoTAM vs ROI is a thing… obviously.
- choilive 3y agoYeah, it's more like min-max'ing your TAM. Minimize effort in areas that don't have any return and maximize the areas that do. Business 101.
- paulcole 3y agoYC startup idea: AI generated-articles designed to give computer programmers dopamine hits when they get to correct a small error/issue/discrepancy. Like Zyns but distracting. Maybe it’s like a reward. Fix a tough bug and your manager sends you an article where you get to point out that the author is incorrectly using “strawman fallacy.”
- jncfhnb 3y agoYou could probably get a better ROI offering opportunities to make snarky, condescending comments
- paulcole 3y agoGo through my comment history lol. I’ve been giving it away for years!
- fragmede 3y agoZyns?
- margalabargala 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zyn_(nicotine_pouches) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zyn_(nicotine_pouches)
- fragmede 3y agoThanks. That's what I found via Google but I don't use them so I wasn't sure of the connection and that it wasn't some app or library that the kids are using these days that I hadn't heard about.
- margalabargala 3y agoNah, just a physical item representation of "single serving thing that makes the happy neurotransmitters"
- margalabargala 3y agoThis is basically the idea behind various word puzzles. See: https://www.nytimes.com/crosswords https://www.nytimes.com/crosswords
- paulcole 3y agoGreat point. Sudoku is one of my favorites in the word puzzle genre.
- cmgriffing 3y agoI had one interesting thought while reading that section. It seems that a lot of effort has been put into tooling for translating to and from English. It's probably much more effort invested than for other languages, so by using English he actually is increasing his TAM because the translation tools are better adapted to many other languages from English.
- Dalewyn 3y agoOr to put it another way: Spanish can understand English. English can't understand Spanish. Speaking English you can communicate with English and Spanish without also speaking Spanish, kill two birds with one stone. The virtues of a lingua franca.
- aleph_minus_one 3y ago> Spanish can understand English. > English can't understand Spanish. Many Spanish-speaking people are bad at English.
- renewiltord 3y agoFunny how dominant languages of the past have died but now the lingua angla feels forever. I wonder if that's how it feels to be at the height of some culture's age: it feels immortal. Then it falls and is only remembered as the past: either as humorous, or as sophisticated, but not meant for normal use. We shall cement this one by creating AIs in the American image.
- coldtea 3y agoThe Roman Empire seemed forever for those living within it too!
- wddkcs 3y agoThat cement will always crumble, but the next empire will probably be built with it's pieces. It's no accident that the current global language is a derivative of the last 'worldwide' language, Latin, which itself flourished from its relationship to Alexander's Greece, a language which stole its alphabet from the semitic empires. Nothing new under the sun.
- declarethroway 3y agoDual language adds clutter. We are in the age of short attention spans. The part you quoted is just below the Remove as much friction from the buying process as possible one. And from personal experience, ages ago, landing some jobs when people tought I was native English speaker, and even same country, sometimes is better if they don't know the relation will be across international boundaries until they have half decided to buy/contract. Maybe that has changed in recent years.
- tithe 3y ago> “If you’re getting hate, that’s a good sign.” ...In the past, he used to engage with them...Now, he doesn’t get too involved. Did he mean to say "passion" in this case? How is hate a "good" sign of engagement? If someone has an opinion and is willing to share it with me, I'd hope they could do it in a constructive way (but I wouldn't call that "hate", and this is the Internet he's talking about). Imagine being surrounded by 100 people hurling insults at you, telling you you're no good and your product / service / art sucks. How is that a "good sign"? Edit: Maybe the assumption is "For every hater, I find 10 people that _do_ like it", so the realization is that "I'm reaching people," and the underlying prayer is that "And hopefully, they're not _all_ haters."
- j7ake 3y agoIt’s the unrecognized but genius artist fallacy: many great artists were unknown and poor when they did their best work. Therefore, since I am unknown and poor, I must be a great artist.
- enneff 3y agoThat’s not it at all. Almost all art is just quietly ignored. If people have strong feelings about your art then that’s a huge win.
- doytch 3y agoI think the argument here is that hate (which is a subset of passion) is not the purely negative thing that we immediately think it is. Especially in art. When people _hate_ art the art has served its purpose. Art's intention (to paint with heinously broad strokes) is to create emotions and drive thoughts. That's a very different intention than a product/service and they shouldn't be compared in that sense. But also: > Afterall, it’s good for engagement and the Instagram algorithm.
- free_bip 3y agoArts intention is whatever the artist makes it out to be. If an artist wants their work to be loved, not hated... Well then this doesn't really apply does it
- __loam 3y agoHell yeah
- gexaha 3y ago> Just get started. Start selling in the real world That's all nice, the problem is though that the market is in decline right now
- nachox999 3y agoThere are billions of dollars floating around in the market, it's just a matter of knowing how to catch them
- Animats 3y agoThis looks more like pursuing Instagramming full time.
- iamacyborg 3y agoInstagram is the marketing channel but you still need to put in the work to have something to promote.
- onemoresoop 3y agofiddling with printers and plotters isn't the hard part, most likely the marketing part is because anything sells if you find the fools. The whole stick of this article strikes me as marketing in the first place.
- salomonk_mur 3y agoI'm pretty sure you are severely understimating the amount of work that goes into quality art pieces, no matter the medium. Also, thinking of customers as "fools" only makes sense if you believe you are selling/producing garbage. If what you make has value, then whoever buys it is no fool.
- onemoresoop 3y agoYou're also underestimating the amount of great quality art that simply doesn't sell. Hence the power of marketing. And the art that sells for lots and lots of money is also marketing and financial gimmicks the art world does behind the scenes. Unfortunately it's not quality that matters, it's the notoriety of the artist. It goes back to marketing in circles.
- Apocryphon 3y agoPerhaps the same can be said of tech.
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoWith AI hitting Art, and the Engineering Job Market right now, is it a toss which is the worse choice?
- iamacyborg 3y agoArt has been a poor career choice for a long time before the current state of AI
- onemoresoop 3y agoNot if you're truly into marketing and art is a second thought. Most 'artists' of this type sell copies because that easy money. But if you're not good with marketing you end up stockpiling copies of your art that nobody wants.
- tkiolp4 3y agoRegardless of AI, isn’t it equally hard to start a business (no matter how small)? OP made it (it seems), but chances are against one. I think this applies now, 10 years ago and will apply 10 years from now. We only see posts of the successful ones, though.
- tayo42 3y agoAi isn't making paintings, taking photographs, sculpting or making things. Ai does a very narrow part of what art is.
- holoduke 3y agoIt can enhance it though. I can draw my own painting ask my local ai to fill in the gaps or to upscale it a bit etc. Is the art part gone then?
- temp0826 3y agoAI is hitting engineering now too, no? (Sure in small ways now, but I imagine it would be one of the first targets considering it is engineers doing it) Since covid I left tech and have been working at ayahuasca retreat centers (assisting and managing) and apprenticing. Frankly I can't imagine a career less at risk to AI replacement! Maybe someone should start a job board for AI-proof gigs.
- datadrivenangel 3y agoReminds me of the classic: "Sorry I missed your comment of many months ago. I no longer build software; I now make furniture out of wood. The hours are long, the pay sucks, and there's always the opportunity to remove my finger with a table saw, but nobody asks me if I can add an RSS feed to a DBMS, so there's that :-)" https://github.com/docker/cli/issues/267#issuecomment-695149477 https://github.com/docker/cli/issues/267#issuecomment-695149...
- lolinder 3y agoI missed this! HN discussion (with an elaboration by the author/woodworker) here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24541964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24541964
- passion__desire 3y agoI remember a quantum information theorist went to become a hard labourer in construction because he thought "physical labour is food for the soul"
- monster_group 3y agoAnd I want to become a quantum theorist. I think being able to manipulate symbols on paper and explain the universe is food for the soul. Grass always seems greener on the other side. :-)
- aleph_minus_one 3y ago> And I want to become a quantum theorist. I think being able to manipulate symbols on paper and explain the universe is food for the soul. Grass always seems greener on the other side. :-) I don't think this is a case of "grass always seems greener on the other side", but of getting a job as a quantum theorist. It is hard to find (and keep for a long time) a job in your area of academia. :-(
- napierzaza 3y ago[dead]
- timwaagh 3y agoTalk about failing upwards
- antirez 3y agoWell, he is using code as a tool, as a mean to reach his goals. I believe this is the best way to write code, after all. Should almost be the only sensible way. It's just that in 2024, having a programming job is 90% of times doing things you don't care with tools you don't want to use. The problem is not programming itself.
- mberning 3y ago90% may even be generous.
- ornornor 3y agoYou forgot to mention terrible managers, abusive “business” people, and utterly broken processes that put all of the responsibility and none of the agency on the developers themselves.
- antirez 3y agoYes, you are right. Often the "environment" sucks as well.
- helboi4 3y agoBruh I was just opening up my computer to apply for a CS masters to advance my career as a languages & humanities degree holder turned SE who always wanted to do art. Now I'm back to thinking I should try and work on art until it can take over my career. It's sort of upsetting that doing something I'm bad at (SE) makes me more money than anything I'm good at. Feels like it traps me.
- greenie_beans 3y agoi'm also a humanities degree holder turned software engineer. i recently quit my job so i can work on my art. do it!!!!! my spirit is so much better. fuck computers.
- ezekg 3y agoI went from art to software. I feel like software is the ultimate form of creative expression.
- cosiiine 3y agoYou can make art with code and make a living from it. Start looking at generative and algorithmic artists for some inspiration. Owning one of these pen plotters (look at the axidraw and next draw) helps too.
- tayo42 3y agoThis is why I never really tried. I thought I could sell art but it's a grind and political. It seems like either you can work constantly to sell art to fund making art or half ass it at some corporate job, make a ton of money and make art?
- boppo1 3y agoCorporate jobs don't leave much time to really make art unless it's halfassed garbage.
- Gigachad 3y agoPeople seem to make a decent living doing furry art commissions. Looks like far less grind than other kinds of art and also not corporate.
- rgmerk 3y agoI dunno, the 500th commission of Bandit and Lucky’s Dad doing *censored* probably gets pretty tiresome as well.
- anal_reactor 3y agoI saw a graph somewhere that vast majority of income from OnlyFans is earned by a small number of top performers. I assume that something similar happens in the furry community.
- Gigachad 3y ago
- artur_makly 3y agoCongrats on following your passion. The Universe will reward you ( one way or another ) just curious, with 245K followers on Insta.. how many units/month are you selling?
- AlecSchueler 3y agoI did this some years ago myself and I want to say the only thing I miss is...agile working! Throw your tomatoes now. It's fantastic to work in this field and very fulfilling but I consistently find the quality of teamwork and coordination to be much lacking compared to my engineering past. I wish I could sit down with a group of musicians and give them a bunch of Jira tickets to work on for the sprint before the upcoming rehearsal.
- onemoresoop 3y ago> I wish I could sit down with a group of musicians and give them a bunch of Jira tickets to work on for the sprint before the upcoming rehearsal. They'd most likely become your little slaves if you paid them. The reason people put up with such bureaucratic systems and bosses is the pay. And many quit in frustration for lower pay and more freedom.
- AlecSchueler 3y ago> They'd most likely become your little slaves if you paid them That would be great but because most of these people are in the "quit out of frustration for lower pay and more freedom" bracket they're not always so easy to persuade with the carrot of cash. More likely they'll just turn down the project and move onto another.
- greenie_beans 3y agoi've never met a great instrument player who needed jira for solo practice. tomato ** 100000, with a chorus of violins.
- AlecSchueler 3y agoPractice isn't the issue, everyone loves to do that. It's more the mundane things like writing bios for social media, contacting venues, finalising lyrics etc.
- jokethrowaway 3y agoWhat happened to people before processes?
- redbell 3y agoIf I were to transition from software engineering, I'd prioritize a role that meets the following criteria: 1. Minimizes screen time and doesn't rely heavily on computers for productivity. 2. Allows me to disconnect after work without constant notifications or calls. 3. Offers stability, requiring minimal adaptation to new trends or technologies. 4. Lastly, and more importantly, not easily replaceable by AI in the near future.
- dottjt 3y agoAny ideas on actual roles? I think the thing that kills me is the mental exhaustion of software development. Just thinking about how to solve problems all day is mentally taxing.
- spicyusername 3y agoTeacher seems to fit some of those.
- bradly 3y agoGet a portable Laguna or Woodmizer saw mill. Optional kiln.
- redbell 3y agoIMHO, Farming is the ideal switch for a techie. Technically, you are switching from the likes of Matrix to speaking to animals. Another activity that I believe would bring more joy than 99% of jobs, if not all, is charity.
- tetromino_ 3y agoAre you speaking from experience? Personally - speaking as someone who had needed to plant, hill, water, weed, and harvest plenty of sacks of potatoes by hand as a child - I would say that coding is vastly preferable over farming; and in fact, that most things are preferable over farming.
- 3y ago
- Joel_Mckay 3y agoLive the dream, and create something beautiful. Some retire early =)
- squigglydonut 3y agoFunny that "always be selling" is a core principle of his art. I would describe him more of a businessman than artist. Maybe designer. But an artist does not care about money. The art comes first. Buyers must wait.
- nachox999 3y agoI've been playing the piano and composing music for over a decade. Last year, I started getting paid as a ghost composer, and since then, I've been composing more songs per week on average than ever before in my life. I don't regret anything; I love everything I've composed for the person who hired me, and getting paid for it is an incredible bonus. It's almost like a dream come true that I never sought or aimed for. I also didn't feel any less of an artist for accepting payment for my work. I simply believe that we need to take some of the romanticism out of the notion that to be a true artist, you have to starve.
- ojbyrne 3y ago"robots known as pen plotters" is a nice marketing twist that I don't think I've heard before. https://www.hpmuseum.net/exhibit.php?class=4&cat=24 https://www.hpmuseum.net/exhibit.php?class=4&cat=24
- BenFranklin100 3y agoI’ve known a couple guys who’ve done this. In 18 months both were back to work as full time programmers.
- lasermatts 3y agoThis really hits home. I recently quit my job as a robotics engineer -- and I've been painting a lot more and have noticed the quality of my work has gone up. In the past few weeks I've had more sales than I had in the year prior as I was doing it nights and weekends. Super cool to read about other engineers-turned-artists and how they approach their work!
- datascienced 3y agoWhat sort of Engineer? I am guessing a mechanical engineer?
- nachox999 3y agoI've been playing the piano and composing music for over a decade. Last year, I started getting paid as a ghost composer, and since then, I've been composing more songs per week on average than ever before in my life. I don't regret anything; I love everything I've composed for the person who hired me, and getting paid for it is an incredible bonus. It's almost like a dream come true that I never sought or aimed for. I also didn't feel any less of an artist for accepting payment for my work. I simply believe that we need to take some of the romanticism out of the notion that to be a true artist, you have to starve.
- mkl 3y agoHow did you find work as a ghost composer? By having a lot of your own work out there in public?
- nachox999 3y agoIt was by chance, I wasn't looking for it. I was working as a community manager for a musician and I came up with the idea of suggesting co-composing something together, and ended up composing songs for her. If I wanted to reverse engineer it, I could start by proposing the same thing to every musician I know (or even reaching out to musicians I don't know through social media).