Ask HN: What is the best way to spend my time as a 17-year-old who can code?

Reckless driving is not cool, it's fucking douchebaggy. Other people are on the road, trying to go about their lives without being crippled, maimed and killed. They're all trusting you, their fellow citizens, who have their life in your hands, to treat it with respect.

Volunteer for a local charity that needs your help?

Contribute to the (standard, maybe) library you like the most?

I freelanced online and did a startup at 17. The pay was terrible and the startup a failure, but beyond all that, the knowledge was worth it.

I started out like you. Here's how I learned to make money. I started a small business tech firm and just went out and asked businesses what their problems were and came up with ideas on how to solve them. You've taught yourself code, now teach yourself how to make a business. "Ready, Fire, Aim" and "Emyth" are great books to start. What I've learned in following this path is that there are three things to quickly generate skill-based income: 1. a list of businesses with discretionary budget to spend (leads). Companies will drop $1,000; $5,000; $10,000; or about $35,000 on an experiment (you) depending on their size. Enterprise environments (200 knowledge workers or more) have more structured problems, smaller ones tend to have problems that also involve sales/marketing- consider learning about both from Hubspot Academy. Create a speadsheet of 1,000 leads. Then you know you can't run out of business opportunities. 2. create a path to your potential customer making a purchase. once you have a lot of leads you have to learn what people want to be pitched. as an engineer, you want to solve real problems. that's awesome, it's also how you create real value, get referral clients, and generally just get to do cooler things for more money. But it's too much friction for someone to take a risk on a new relationship and change their entire way of thinking. Change one way they think about their situation. Read "the challenger sale." You are inventive, that's why you love to code. That's a skill that makes you better than any other type of sales person. 3. build systems for yourself. if you do the first two you will get relationships. relationships take management and people feel about you however well you manage that process. scrap together systems that make you an automatic boss at things like follow up, meetings, and showing your clients what you are doing and how you have helped them. zapier, trello, hubspot crm, boomerang for gmail. it's ok to use your coding skills to smooth out the integrstion of these systems, but resist the urge to reinvent them. use them as the scaffolding that let's you build for your clients.

Finally, have an answer for your age (tell them what motivates you) but don't bring it up. You run your own business, people pay your business. If you have a trusted adult, google how to DIY forming an LLC in your state and make it official.

I have seen many unexpected setbscks in my life. the ability to create a business from nothing enabled me to overcome them all.