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Ask HN: How to be independent as a developer?

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Re: Ask HN: How to be independent as a developer?

#31

Post by archon »

rwalling wrote: post #30
andygcook wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m assuming this comment is sarcastic. However, Rob does a lot more than just write and sell books. He started several SaaS companies, and runs an accelerator for indie SaaS companies called TinySeed. My hunch is that book sales are a tiny fraction of his income/wealth, and he earnestly wrote it to help aspiring entrepreneurs. I’ve read the book and it’s worth reading if you’re interested in starting an indie compan…

Ha! Yeah, Internet commenters are the best :-) I also took his comment as sarcasm, or just uninformed. But you are correct, Andy, I've earned (literally) 100x more money from building/growing software companies than I have from any books I've written. The books, podcast, etc. are a hobby, not the job.

At one point you were talking about the possibility of updating Start Small Stay Small. Just curious if that's still on the table?

Re: Ask HN: How to be independent as a developer?

#32

Post by rwalling »

archon wrote: post #31
rwalling wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha! Yeah, Internet commenters are the best :-) I also took his comment as sarcasm, or just uninformed. But you are correct, Andy, I've earned (literally) 100x more money from building/growing software companies than I have from any books I've written. The books, podcast, etc. are a hobby, not the job.

At one point you were talking about the possibility of updating Start Small Stay Small. Just curious if that's still on the table?

It is. I'm trying to wrap up the book I'm currently working on, then plan to circle back to updating SSSS next year.

Re: Ask HN: How to be independent as a developer?

#33

Post by manmal »

artemonster wrote: post #16

In a couple of minutes someone would start telling you about some unsolved problems in whatever niches where you can offer a solution. Without any slightest hint on how to even get in touch with such „niches“. From my long journey of scraping indiehacker, reddit and IRL stories most found their „niche“ either by pure chance doing something tangent or by directly solving their own personal problems and scaling the sol…

You could start helping out people or organizations for free. It’s a great way to get to know people and find niches to build for.

Re: Ask HN: How to be independent as a developer?

#34

Post by yieldcrv »

One of the pain points of reality is that entrepreneurs are tasked (or self-tasked out of necessity) with both finding a problem and masquerading any procedurally generated idea as the solution

It should really be different people/organizations that we can judge independently, what we are currently doing is very inefficient and only somewhat works simply because there are so many entrprenuers and so much capital and money, but it could be more efficient if the more correct entrepreneur was evaluated earlier instead of just the more connected entrepreneur

Re: Ask HN: How to be independent as a developer?

#35

Post by jcpst »

philbo wrote: post #20
rwalling wrote: post #8

I have been talking + writing about this topic for about 15 years. It's a bigger topic than one could cover in a HN comment, so here are a few resources I'd recommend: - If you're looking for free info about this, subscribe to Startups for the Rest of Us (podcast) and/or https://www.youtube.com/microconf . Both have hundreds of hours of audio/video content on starting startups, with an emphasis on being a developer.…

How to be independent as a developer: 1. Write a book 2. Promote it to chumps on the internet

I think your comment is funny, but doesn’t really apply to this individual.

Also, I just bought this book, so I guess I’m one of those chumps :D

Re: Ask HN: How to be independent as a developer?

#36

Post by ronyfadel »

throwaway743 wrote: post #17
ronyfadel wrote: post #6

Do you have problems that need to be solved? Do you have the skills to solve them? That's how I started. Plus, looking at my own problems gives me extra motivation to fix them.

I'm currently on this path, been developing/designing for the last year and a half, and will be launching my product relatively soon. The issue I've been facing lately is self doubt. There's definitely a market, it solves a problem for that market and myself, and the product has shaped up to be something that I can be proud of and share/help with others. But there's this nagging contrasting feeling that's hard to des…

A year and a half is too long to launch an MVP. If you can't do it within 3-4 months tops, you shouldn't do it (again, I'm talking about an MVP).

Self doubt creeps in when you work on something, perfecting it, but never shipping. The voice of doubt grows louder and louder because now there's more at stake.

For myself, the products that worked were the ones I shipped within < 1 month, and got a lot of user feedback and kept making the products better and better throughout the years.

Re: Ask HN: How to be independent as a developer?

#37

Post by _benj »

rwalling wrote: post #8

I have been talking + writing about this topic for about 15 years. It's a bigger topic than one could cover in a HN comment, so here are a few resources I'd recommend: - If you're looking for free info about this, subscribe to Startups for the Rest of Us (podcast) and/or https://www.youtube.com/microconf . Both have hundreds of hours of audio/video content on starting startups, with an emphasis on being a developer.…

I visit tinyseed/calm fund from time to time to remind me where I want to get. Not there yet but working to it :)

Re: Ask HN: How to be independent as a developer?

#38

Post by poulsbohemian »

I'm guessing "do my own thing" looks something like:

-- Control my own schedule

-- Control my financial success

So maybe you think you'll become an entrepreneur. As a developer, apart from any other skills, one really only knows how to make things for other developers. So then you think maybe you either need to find a bright idea or you need to partner with someone with a bright idea. One of these involves giving up control, and the other one involves becoming something you aren't at the moment, IE: an expert in something else.

So maybe you think you'll contract / be a consultant. But that also involves giving up control and can devolve into being an employee by a different name.

You might even come to the conclusion at some point that you really like developing things... but not for other people. At which point you have to ask yourself whether software is really the career for you.

So to go back to your original question: There are two ways to be independent as a developer:

-- Be a hobbyist who builds things for themself.

-- Be an entrepreneur with a product that you control yourself.

Re: Ask HN: How to be independent as a developer?

#39

Post by ge96 »

shudza wrote: post #19

Let me tell you a little secret... You don't need to be a developer to be an entrepreneur, you are not in advantage to other non-dev entrepreneurs, and you are most probably worse entrepreneur than others. The better entrepreneurs are the ones with sales, marketing and growth hacking skills, the ones who "fake it till they make it", etc. If you are all that, you are probably a not-so-good dev anyway. If you wanna be…

I just hope "entrepreneur" is more than just selling courses online/dropshipping/shopify sites.

I remember one time I got sucked into this blogger guy/persona like a Purple Elephant, and they sounded so welcoming. I hit them up to ask for tips and they're like "yeah sure you got $500?" I had to laugh I was like oh...

Re: Ask HN: How to be independent as a developer?

#40

Post by ge96 »

abrichr wrote: post #4

> What's the best way to meet someone who has a problem that needs to be solved? Industry events, co-working spaces, LinkedIn, social gatherings of all sorts > Alternately how do you meet someone with a complimentary skill set that has similar goals? startupschool.org has a cofounder matching platform you might useful. > Any intermediate steps I should consider? Consulting can be a good starting point since you learn…

> Industry events, co-working spaces

Will add be careful of networking events from something like Meetup. Last time I did one I thought I made a friend but it was an MLM pitch ha.

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