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Advice from a friend: Never do your PhD in a subject you love, because afterwards you'll hate it.
I still love the subject I did my PhD in. I did get thoroughly disenchanted with academia though.
Where the author made a mistake was in trying to make "what the market wants" rather than just making stuff he/she actually wanted to make and trying to see if it was possible to make money from it. If you try to make "what the market wants" rather than what you want, you're going to make garbage and further saturate a market that is already filled with garbage that was designed to cash in on "what the market wants".…
Eh, at the same time, I think the problem a lot of entrepreneurs have is that they overfocus on "what you are interested in" instead of "what the market wants", and therefore build something that nobody wants. If you can find a perfect intersection, that's beautiful, but probably uncommon. Some of the most lucrative businesses are stuff like (anti)fraud/security/payments that is pretty darn drab.
One sure difference between these two things is that you absolutely know what you are interested in, but your opinions about what the market wants are going to be speculative until you have customers.
edit: i.e. judging what you think is beautiful vs. a Keynesian beauty contest.
The article should be called: >Started doing Marketing for My Passion and It Appeared I Don't Love Marketing
In my experience mentoring folks, when they hate what they are doing it often comes down to "not enough money" or "because someone would pay me to do it." The money discussion is always interesting because people often goal "lots of money" without asking themselves what they would do if they had "lots of money." I know a bunch of engineers who, through fortuitous circumstances got to the "lots of money" stage, decided to "retire" and do only what they wanted to do, only to find themselves going back to work because after you take a year off or so the lack of mental stimulation and challenge (the whole thing that attracted them to engineering in the first place) was missing in their life. They learned late that setting a goal of "interesting problems which challenge me creatively" is much better for them than "lots of money."
I personally love programming, always have. But I have come to hate programming something again that I already have, in a different framework/abi, because some third party had to re-invent the wheel and forgot that all wheels need axles and attachment points Etc.
I liked the article, you’re a good writer.
Let's think about what it means to "make money". The phrase itself is already misleading because no one can make money, money is "made" by the central banks by changing some numbers in mainframe databases. These mainframes are connected to some local distribution banks like credit unions which then enable economic activity by business loans and other kinds of "investments", e.g. local government services like street…
I'm sorry to react so strongly, but I think it's demeaning to suggest that the life condition you described is one of "fighting over scraps". It's also... (I'm struggling to find the right words) really entitled in a materialistic way to suggest (correct me if this is not what you suggest) that it's unfair that almost nobody can move from the average station to the station of uber-wealthy. Who is owed the life of opulence? And who owes it to them? And how many people actually aspire to this extreme wealth, vs. recognize that there is a heck of a lot more meaningful things to do with life than make money?
I think there's a way about going about these things that can make you hate it or enjoy it. I'll share some of my story as an example of how I compartmentalize my different activities. I code for myself, I have been since I was a kid. Often they're little utilities that I find fun, interesting, or useful. Sometimes they're tested, if for instance it's something running part of my house. Most of the time they're not b…
How do you prioritize your time? I see a lot of similarities in us. I feel the same way about my main job, though at a smaller firm. I also consult with small businesses on the side and have had very similar experience. What I don't have are any for-profit ventures (of my own or with friends), and I've almost totally stopped coding for myself. I used to write code for fun all the time, and would wonder that many of m…
When I worked in an office this was difficult. I had to assign values to certain activities, sometimes subliminally. For instance, being that my personal coding was a lot more creative it sometimes taught me concrete enough patterns that I could take to work. That made it a higher order of value. I was making enough money at my day job that consulting wasn't needed, but I took less time off as a result. Gardening was a higher order of value because I find it very cathartic, and I'd end each day with a bike ride through San Jose.
Now I work from home and it's much easier. If I need time to think I'll go pull weeds; weeds are a weekly activity and gardens rarely require huge chunks of time commitment unless you're making something new. I do my day job 8-4 and use breaks to garden or ride my bike. In the evening I work on my other money making ventures. I don't need to do so many decompression activities later in the day because they're spread throughout the day in between work.
At least once a month my partner and I reserve a weekend to do something together. It could be restaurant or camping, sometimes a show. This, I think, is key for maintaining healthy relationships as a busy person.
> What I don't have are any for-profit ventures (of my own or with friends)
This took me a while to find. I was always willing to work on new things, but it took my friends getting to stages in their lives where they wanted to do this. Working remotely taught me skills to make this more possible as well.
> Currently I have all of that going towards the same consulting project, and I've found it somewhat unpalatable to "spend" the opportunity cost of working for myself instead.
I found a purpose for my consulting. It funds projects or trips that I already know that I want to do. Knowing that it's a budget extension tool and having a toolkit I can draw from to avoid situations where I have to learn while consulting has helped me a lot.
> I've almost totally stopped coding for myself.
I usually work on stuff where I'll continue to get value out of it day after day. Offline home automation is where I used to sink a ton of time but I yield benefits from it every day. When I got into kombucha brewing I built a system to help me journal batches. Then when I felt confident in that system to produce reproducible results I turned it into an app. It's a shitty Django app with frontend framework but it's actually immensely fun to hack on and it yields delicious kombucha every 10 days.
While I somewhat agree with the premise of this post, I think it is exacerbated by the fact that the author was trying to turn something like fiction writing into a business. When I think of businesses that suck in terms of economics and chances of success, fiction writing is one of the first things that come to mind. In general, you like things more when they make you a lot of money. A lot of fun things suck when yo…
I think you have it reversed, a lot of fun things suck when they make you money.
I play a musical instrument for a long long time, nowhere as good as a very good players, but sometimes I get a small paid gig and it is actually a fun thing to do. My life doesn't depend on the income from playing so I just enjoy opportunities when they come and go.
It naturally progressed into forming a band, then we started doing small concerts. Before I could realized, most of my time was in spreadsheets to register the costs, the supplies we needed, transportation, on top of getting everyone to learn the same songs.
In the end I got so burned out that I stopped playing almost completely. Went from 3-4 hours a day to 0 over years.
Not the same as the author, but same case of trying to monetize a hobby completely killed the hobby for me.
The person who said this article should have been titled "Started doing Marketing for My Passion and It Appeared I Don't Love Marketing" is right on. I've met musicians who were totally uninterested in going to see anyone who wasn't "happening." You can't blame them, since they're trying to make a living. I always thought about programming: "I like it OK. Sometimes I like it a lot, but it's a living. I don't do it at…