41–50 of 206 posts
My 10 year project (a computer-geometry-art thing) (yes, 10 years, 1 project) was a great success. I made zip cash. But that was not the aim of the project. http://www.fleen.org/generative-art/
My 10 year project (a computer-geometry-art thing) (yes, 10 years, 1 project) was a great success. I made zip cash. But that was not the aim of the project. http://www.fleen.org/generative-art/
Do you have any recommendations as to how to get started creating your style of generative art? I have been interested in a similar project for sometime, but don’t know the best place to get started. My background is in Math, so I’d really like to understand the “why” and “how” of these types of algorithms rather than just plugging in some parameters and getting a nice picture.
All these have a thing in common: he gave up because they weren’t immediate successes. Some even had traction: 5 users in 3 months isn’t the incredible outlier story you hear time and time again, but it’s 5 people you can talk to, listen to what they want (and why they signed up anyway), then you gear up from there. We’re too conditioned to believe in the stories of immediate success and MVPs making tens of thousands…
If you just want to learn how to build stuff for fun, sure do 5 projects that quickly. But if you want to build anything to make money (even if small), you must spend more than a few months on it. That is why software developers are not all entrepreneurs because even though a lot of us can build stuff, we don't know what to do with it.
All these have a thing in common: he gave up because they weren’t immediate successes. Some even had traction: 5 users in 3 months isn’t the incredible outlier story you hear time and time again, but it’s 5 people you can talk to, listen to what they want (and why they signed up anyway), then you gear up from there. We’re too conditioned to believe in the stories of immediate success and MVPs making tens of thousands…
So much this sentiment. I ask people I mentor "why do you measure yourself in dollars?" and they often respond with something like "all the successful people I admire are rich." or something along those lines. Money is a 'first derivative' of success and a lagging indicator. Measure yourself by what you learn not by what you earn and you will be sticking to projects longer because the payoff will be in what they are…
On the other hand I recognize it's somewhat privileged to just shrug off making money with "side hustles."
All these have a thing in common: he gave up because they weren’t immediate successes. Some even had traction: 5 users in 3 months isn’t the incredible outlier story you hear time and time again, but it’s 5 people you can talk to, listen to what they want (and why they signed up anyway), then you gear up from there. We’re too conditioned to believe in the stories of immediate success and MVPs making tens of thousands…
All these have a thing in common: he gave up because they weren’t immediate successes. Some even had traction: 5 users in 3 months isn’t the incredible outlier story you hear time and time again, but it’s 5 people you can talk to, listen to what they want (and why they signed up anyway), then you gear up from there. We’re too conditioned to believe in the stories of immediate success and MVPs making tens of thousands…
Reminds me of "Good Software Takes Ten Years. Get Used To it." by Joel Spolsky. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/07/21/good-software-take...
This chart is a good example of having no traction for years and then growing exponentially. We usually hear about a company once it hits the inflection point so it seems like an overnight success.
All these have a thing in common: he gave up because they weren’t immediate successes. Some even had traction: 5 users in 3 months isn’t the incredible outlier story you hear time and time again, but it’s 5 people you can talk to, listen to what they want (and why they signed up anyway), then you gear up from there. We’re too conditioned to believe in the stories of immediate success and MVPs making tens of thousands…
I don't think "just stick with it" is a good advice in general and especially not for his projects. He was smart to abandon his minimal time tracker, minimal metronome and jobs website. BTW: he didn't get 5 users for minimal time tracker, he got 5 people who signed up for a mailing list based on screenshots of non-existing product. Even smarter would be to not do such projects in the first place. With jobs websites y…
You have to learn how and when to KILL YOUR CHILDREN (your ideas)!
I typically come up with a dozen ideas a week - most of them don't pass hurdles of basic physics or economics, or once you research "the market" you discover there isn't one. So you plunge a knife into the idea and kill it quick. You have to learn how to do this. I do minimally document them and then file them away, however. Things can change.
Then you absolutely may need to spend YEARS at the few that survive. But you are always checking, setting hurdles and milestones and being ready to kill off the idea that doesn't have any more to work.
Or you discover YOU aren't the one who can take through that jungle and then you have to decide what to do about that. Sometimes you find someone who can and take a minority venture stake in what they can do with it. Sometimes you have to wait until ideas or technologies become more mature. Or you need to put it on the back burner as you can accumulate more capital to "do it right".
You do need an incumbent in most cases to prove the market exists but you want to shy away from the "popular" products because of high competition you won't likely match.
Not earning money is not a failure. Wasting time on non-free software the purpose of which is making money - now that's unfortunate.
My advice to that guy would be:
* Write software you need personally. You will at least have one happy user - and if you write something you like, other people will probably want to use it too.
* Think of the software needs of people you know - in your family, physical community, or online communities - and see whether you can't help implement it or adapt/improve existing software for that purpose.
"Get a Product Job (May 2020 - May 2021) This time the main objective was to learn something new by doing. I chose Ruby on Rails. It's a great framework to build websites quickly." Choosing Roby on Rails in 2020 as a "new framework" for web development ... sheesh.
I'm not a RoR developer, but still: which framework would you use for a new web project in 2021?
Enough has been said about the projects in general already which mostly mimics the game (not solving a real user problem, late-entry, competing with existing solutions, no marketing)
