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What are other promising businesses programmers in the US can start?
The article is about programmers in China.
The article is about a programmer in China. This one guy might be (probably is) particularly good at making & selling street treats.
Strangely enough, this idea has gone through my mind a couple of times, for a completely different reasons though. Mortality is closely connected with the hours we spend sitting each day. So that's one reason. The other one is that after working so hard and saving up enough for the rest of your life, you need something that is much more stress-free. And selling something so basic as food is exactly that.
While sitting is correlated with mortality, I don't think it's been proved that it causes it. I suspect the relation between the two is more complicated than that. As far as stress free... Interacting directly with many customers can be a trying experience. I think it can be a lot more stressful than an office job for many people.
Regarding stress free comment... I guess it depends on the person in question. Besides, when you finish for the day, you really finish for the day and that's the most important thing. Entrepreneurship is not for everyone.
Smart people will put health before entrepreneurship, especially if it prolongs their life and not just in the sense how many years will they have to life.
Also, if you click the Chinese link in the article you'll find a video.
The average age of the US farmer is 58. In Japan it is 68. There is less and less land available for agriculture. Less and less fresh water (agriculture uses 90% of fresh water in the US). The weather gets worse by the year to produce food. On the other hand there are more and more people in the world. So supply is diminishing while demand is high. That's why food is more and more expensive almost every quarter. All…
The numbers in the article don't quite add up. Shao bing is cheap food... usually 1.5 or 2 renminbi, maybe 2.5. If they're selling 100 a day, every day, at 2.5元/each, that would be 250元/day and ~7500元/month. 7500元 is only about $1220. So even if the article is only assuming revenue per month (and not profit), they still have to increase their price or sales (or some combination) by 267% to hit the $3,259/month mentio…
I can imagine for a popular cart selling 100 items is usually done over a lunch, then something similar in the evening again.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Normal weather you can plan for, but there are outlier events that can still wipe you out that's basically impossible to predict or prepare for. Sandy in NYC flooded a great deal of infrastructure and left buildings without power or communications for a long time. Large parts of downtown were completely depopulated for weeks on end - that sort of event takes out independent business owners, and you can't effectively…
We commonly say that hackers should save up 3-6 months of floating money, especially if they are in the self-employed or contracting/consulting world. You never know when the next job is, you never know what could happen. I don't see how being a small business operator of something like this is different. The source of income is different, the wisdom is the same. Hopefully they were able to set aside months worth of…
It's not hackers, it's adults. This is called an "emergency fund". 3 to 6 months cash that's easy to access in the event of a genuine emergency, including loss of work. Personal Finance 101.
The average age of the US farmer is 58. In Japan it is 68. There is less and less land available for agriculture. Less and less fresh water (agriculture uses 90% of fresh water in the US). The weather gets worse by the year to produce food. On the other hand there are more and more people in the world. So supply is diminishing while demand is high. That's why food is more and more expensive almost every quarter. All…
Or, the engineers and developers make the hardware and software that is inevitably replacing all human labor in agriculture.
What are other promising businesses programmers in the US can start?
Cutting spending and keeping my programming job instead of starting a new business has worked out really well for me. Passive investing of my savings earns me $500/month and I don't have to do any work at all. Other options for those outside of SV is landlording. In some mid-west cities you can earn over $10,000/year/house after all taxes and expenses (including saving for long term expenses like roofs). Not exactly…
Plus you get people waking you up in the middle of the night when they lock themselves out.