What a beautiful piece of writing, which hits close to home for me, as I've always kind of managed side projects and my full-time jobs during office hours.
really appreciate that dsco (author here)
Being laid off and unplanned entrepreneurship
41–50 of 168 posts
Re: Being laid off and unplanned entrepreneurship
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
(author here)... I honestly was scared of it first, as I thought if I edited the code, I'd accidentally change/update the other persons website...
Few years back I ordered something from the internet. I forgot what exactly went wrong, but some JS nonsense prevented me from doing what I wanted to do and I no choice but to use this website. So I opened the inspector to remove that event handler or whatnot. My girlfriend was sitting next to me. "What are you doing?", "Oh, just need to edit this so it allows me to continue." The look on her face was priceless. "You…
I used to do the same with some online-training videos which would stop when I de-focused the browser window.
I just overwrote `window.hasFocus()` to always return true in the browser console.
This felt (and still feels) like magic.
Re: Being laid off and unplanned entrepreneurship
#43I've often heard the narrative from hiring managers over the years that a prospect who's been laid off probably doesn't make a good hire, especially if they've been laid off multiple times. In this wonderfully written and inspiring piece, perhaps we should consider that the real issue isn't the individual's capability but rather that their potential has been misdirected or they haven't been in environments that recog…
Your post reminded me of some thoughts I've had about a similar topic over the last few years.
I'm a scientist, and I've often thought about how the work I and others would do would be different in different funding environments. That's the same idea of people's "potential [being] misdirected" that you are talking about. People often chase the newest shiny things and follow the money for both hiring and funding, but that isn't always good for both the people themselves and for innovation as a whole. We need to make it possible for people to develop their talents and skills, whatever they are and even if they don't match the current needs or desires of the environment, so they we have experts and experienced folks when the time comes for those innovations and technologies. It's the same idea as diversification in investing, with more agility and resilience gained from a diversity of skills and experience. I hope more funding managers and hiring managers realize the value of fostering people's potentials rather than focusing myopically on supposed current needs.
Re: Being laid off and unplanned entrepreneurship
#44View page source is, as was mentioned in the article, magical. The fact that by publishing something online you make it available for everyone else to learn from is astonishing. It used to be knowledge was locked up in books and putting them in libraries for free access was revolutionary, but libraries don't compare to the knowledge transfer benefits of view source in terms of cost and ease. (Obv libraries have a wid…
(author here)... I honestly was scared of it first, as I thought if I edited the code, I'd accidentally change/update the other persons website...
I saw in your "Moi" page a great emphasis on the domain name. I agree with you. I think domain names are the crystallization of an idea, a message. On the other hand, I see a lot of people from startup bubbles in X making fun of domain registration, suggesting that it is a "low bar" activity and doesn't represent any effort toward building a product. I disagree with this point of view. To me, the name is bound to the vision of a product being used by its customers. I cannot imagine something being used without a name or ID. I believe good names tell a story.
Re: Being laid off and unplanned entrepreneurship
#45> I didn’t raise any money for these projects. I funded them with my 9-5 salary. Solo. And the reason for that was simple – why on earth would I vehemently abandon boneheaded micro-managing layoff kings in the 9-5 world only to raise money & adopt a board of boneheaded micro-managing layoff kings in the startup world. If I’m gonna build, I’m gonna have free-rein decision making to pursue any and all ludicrous busines…
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Re: Being laid off and unplanned entrepreneurship
#46I can relate to this, though I came into it already knowing how to do the coding part. I had no idea how to do the rest of it.
My entire career was spent building valuable software for companies to generate large profits only for me to be laid off (and fired, once). After the firing I was quite angry and probably a bit arrogant.
I went on a bit of a rage.. "I built the most successful product there, I can do it on my own."
So that's what I did and I haven't worked for anyone else since (on 8 years now).
Re: Being laid off and unplanned entrepreneurship
#47I've often heard the narrative from hiring managers over the years that a prospect who's been laid off probably doesn't make a good hire, especially if they've been laid off multiple times. In this wonderfully written and inspiring piece, perhaps we should consider that the real issue isn't the individual's capability but rather that their potential has been misdirected or they haven't been in environments that recog…
Your post reminded me of some thoughts I've had about a similar topic over the last few years. I'm a scientist, and I've often thought about how the work I and others would do would be different in different funding environments. That's the same idea of people's "potential [being] misdirected" that you are talking about. People often chase the newest shiny things and follow the money for both hiring and funding, but…
This makes me think about all the psych grads, that went to school, wanting to help people, but are now writing dark patterns.
But they are being paid a lot more than they would get, helping people.
Re: Being laid off and unplanned entrepreneurship
#48this is highly dated... 2004-2008, the opportunities were others than today's
The opportunities are different, but the attitude of keeping your eyes open to opportunities and figuring out what works is still true.
We are at a low point, where everything is gated and huge corporations will decide to scare your customers away. Of course, there are always lots of opportunities. But currently they are fewer.
Anyway, I do think we have already seen the bottom of that curve.
Re: Being laid off and unplanned entrepreneurship
#49this is highly dated... 2004-2008, the opportunities were others than today's
This attitude is bad, but it is kinda justified. If you spend any time in the "indie hacker" entrepreneur space today it is oversaturated with people trying to root out every single angle they can possibly try to address with their tech solution. They are all listening to podcasts, newsletters and buying courses about how to be a tech entrepreneur, but the people selling the 'how to get rich' info are the only ones consistently making money.
Total admiration for the author, it was very savvy to identify that opportunity and they put their money on the line. The modern self-made entrepreneur is less appealing. Success stories nowadays are like "We dropship japanese candy boxes" or "My Crypto Substack has 5k subscribers".
Re: Being laid off and unplanned entrepreneurship
#50I for one would appreciate a list of "software products that the world needs and if you made this then you could make some money".
(Not a video game)