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a) Your experience from a previous career might translate well to the new one.
b) The cost of developing an iPhone app is now low enough, that you can give it a shot and see if your idea is any good, for example by virtue of a)
Two counterpoints: a) Your experience from a previous career might translate well to the new one. b) The cost of developing an iPhone app is now low enough, that you can give it a shot and see if your idea is any good, for example by virtue of a)
Only for sufficiently large values of "full scale".
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/09/business/soros-real-estate...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/british-land-in-j...
Plus the holy grail of game development is making the game addictive
Two counterpoints: a) Your experience from a previous career might translate well to the new one. b) The cost of developing an iPhone app is now low enough, that you can give it a shot and see if your idea is any good, for example by virtue of a)
The point of the article is that when your experience translates well, you should do that. When it does not, you should not.
His view is pretty conservative. Sometimes the interesting thing about apps written from another, outsider perspective is that they approach it in creative ways most people in that niche have not yet thought of. I think the author is parroting the figure of speech "Jack of all trades, master of none" or perhaps the french "Qui trop embrasse, mal etreint" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_of_all_trades,_master_of_n...
Great post. There is research done at the MiT that also supports the fact that intelligent people (ppl with high iqs) find it difficult to make choices and stick to them even after having known which choice is most likely to benefit them the most. Stability is hugely under rated these days.
His examples are wrong though, it's much better to move from being a drugdealer into other legal businesses, even with the cost of learning, than to stay where you are. So yes, drug dealers should make iPhone apps (or buy realestate etc...)
it's much better to move from being a drugdealer
into other legal businesses, even with the cost of
learning ...
And then decide if the cost of transferring is worth it.
A problem with sticking with what you know and what has brought you success in the past is that times and markets change.
The gigolo probably should open a bike shop. But hire someone to run it. Running a bordello is likely to get his ass in jail. Which also suggests that not every move to a related field makes sense. Going form one dubious activity to another dubious activity might not be the best business choice.
One issues I've seen with developers who want to have a business is that they tend to stick to what they know, while not checking to see if what they know lends itself to a sustainable business.
Whilst of course it's sub-optimal to discard or under-utilise what knowledge or experience you currently have, it's probably even worse to not keep learning new things. And more often than not, business experiences are transferable. OK you may not know the technicalities of a new field, but these can be learnt.
Basically: a gigolo for tourists is probably not the best source for business wisdom.
I was a good ranch hand before I was a good fine dining waiter. I then proceeded to become a good engineer, and now I am proceeding to try to be a good web developer. My life would have been a lot more boring, had a stayed a ranch hand, or a waiter, or an engineer.
In calculus, you learn about local maxima and local minima. Your life can have these as well. You sense that you're at a maxima, and if you proceed in any other direction, you will go down. Some people refuse to take any step that feels like a step down, even if the path can take them to a higher local maxima than they were at before.
I was a bad waiter before I was a good one. I was a bad engineer before I was a good one. I'm not a great web developer yet. If your ego can handle going from good to bad, I think you shouldn't stay on your little local maxima, trembling that you'll get knocked off it by events you can't control. Jump off of it of your own free will.