71–80 of 101 posts
"He works a (shocking) average of 20-25 hours a week—a stark contrast to his former life as a salaryman." Kudos @patio11! Will this pace continue with Starfighter? For your and your family's sake, I hope so.
Get that photographer to take more pictures, Patrick!
One of the things I loved about BCC is how it hit many of us over the head with the idea that a product does not have to be 'cool' or innovative or even really all that interesting to make money. Au contraire - bingo is about as uncool and boring as you can get. It kind of opens your mind to new horizons in business terms.
I'm curious about other projects created in the same vein that are making money. I saw a typing tutor webpage posted here on HN, and a stock portfolio tracking service, but don't know if they ever became profitable.
My favorite two were
1. Software for people who sell and install granite countertops to help their customers preview what their counters are going to look like, doing millions of ARR.
2. Software to help high schools and colleges schedule umpires/referees for sports leagues.
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I'm curious about other projects created in the same vein that are making money. I saw a typing tutor webpage posted here on HN, and a stock portfolio tracking service, but don't know if they ever became profitable.
MicroConf just concluded (patio11 spoke) and I spent the conference collecting businesses doing just this. My favorite two were 1. Software for people who sell and install granite countertops to help their customers preview what their counters are going to look like, doing millions of ARR. 2. Software to help high schools and colleges schedule umpires/referees for sports leagues.
There's so many 'niche' markets around that are worth millions if you can hit them (but they're not sexy like social networking or consumer mobile apps)
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ok, this makes lot of sense, I guess I somewhat misparsed the text. EDIT: I wonder if it counts as misreading or misunderstanding, to not notice that a word is an auto-antonym?
How is that an antonym? The point to "falsifiable" is the statement is made about an event is capable of being false, not that it is false.
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Serious question: Patrick was about as well known on the Business of Software message boards as you are on HN when his consulting career started. Those boards no longer exist and were always smaller than HN. Prior to consulting he held what is probably the lowest- status job in software development. What do you think the secret ???'s were for him?
The secret sauce is that he's a good developer, and really good at "engineered marketing" in a way few people are. In addition to communicating really well.
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Yes, there's an Underpants Gnomes quality to this sort of career advice. It's not bad, but there's a giant "?" in the middle that nobody can really help you with, which seems to involve accumulating a huge base of clients beating down your door.
Serious question: Patrick was about as well known on the Business of Software message boards as you are on HN when his consulting career started. Those boards no longer exist and were always smaller than HN. Prior to consulting he held what is probably the lowest- status job in software development. What do you think the secret ???'s were for him?
Here's the 200+ point annual report he did with story of him quitting his day job:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2018816
I'm sure if you look the previous reports up they'd be similarly high ranked.
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Serious question: Patrick was about as well known on the Business of Software message boards as you are on HN when his consulting career started. Those boards no longer exist and were always smaller than HN. Prior to consulting he held what is probably the lowest- status job in software development. What do you think the secret ???'s were for him?
Well, if I knew what went there, it wouldn't be a question mark. My best guess is "luck," though I feel like that's kind of a facile answer. I don't have a better one, at any rate. What do you think it is?
"For example, Bench handles all of Patrick’s bookkeeping. He’s grateful for the freedom to “never think about it again.”"