Before you start to read, I have some things to say. I am not a millionaire yet. I like coding and studying investments. And lately, I've been reading a lot about Business and how to create a product in order to generate passive income that will help me achieve financial independence faster.
I have been following some people from Indie Hackers and what I really like about this community is that you begin to notice you don't need to create the next revolutionary startup (unless you want it) to be in business. There's a lot of people who solved a problem they faced for months or years until they saw there was an opportunity to start a small business and make some money.
Eventually, your business can get big or not. And that's okay if that's okay with you. You don't need to be the next Google, the next Uber in order to be successful, and you don't even need investors. Startup life is something that you really should get to know well before jumping in because it can be stressful.
I was reading Stephanie Hurlburt blog another day and I found this great article about software development and Business where she says:
I know many developers who are essentially making products and giving them away for just a salary or throwing them out because they don't truly understand their worth. Next time you work on a project, really think about what your work is worth and get creative about how to get at that.
This reminds me that, as a developer, I have a feeling that almost everybody I know don't believe they can run a business, so they don't even try. Of course, for us, marketing and dealing with clients isn't something that we would usually bet our money on. Sales and software development are totally different things, and it's hard to sell something to a client that wants something you know it's impossible to do build as a developer.
But that's worth trying. Do the math: let's say your product generates a recurring monthly revenue of $ 1,000. Multiply that for 12 months (1 year) and for 60 months (5 years). That's a nice amount of extra money, right? That money could be put into investments. When you get the taste of making more passive income I don't think you're gonna settle for less.
Think about being financially independent. Don't get me wrong, I know that will not be easy. But wouldn't that be great if you had to work only on what you love and not because you have to pay your bills? Wouldn't that be great if you had the time (the most expensive thing in this world) to live your life the way you want it? That's the spirit. Set your goals and don't settle for less, my friend.
Let me know how many of you already have a business and how many of you are interested in having one. Cheers!
Oldest comments (62)
Good read Steff! I have been following IndieHackers for about a year now and post over there frequently. It is a great community that really supports everyone in it. It is also a great place to know that you are not alone in this adventure. It is an adventure and it is hard, but it is not impossible.
I recently started my own idea. A book about how to go about learning AWS by using it. It focuses on learning by doing. Focus on the problem at hand, build solutions, and learn the services as you go. So far it is off to a great start and I am excited to be taking that first step towards my overall goal.
Feel free to follow me on Twitter Steff. I would be happy to help you out on your adventure as well in anyway I can.
Ahhh good to find another indie hacker! :D
I will, it would be great to have someone with experience to get in touch! I saw an article about how having experience with AWS could increase your salary by $30,000 a year, I think you found a great niche to explore. Good luck on your projects, the best!
I have a invention however it is in a very competitive market. I contracted an Mechanical engineer who assessed it. Getting capital for R&D and patent search can be hard as I really don't understand how much to ask the investor and the percentage of ownership as well long term likely hood due to the fact further research needs to be done on patents to see if it will be an adaption of the idea to sell to the already established business. For the moment, I'm sticking to learning coding, something I like, in the hope of a job to help put toward my idea.
So what I'm getting at like you, Steff, is keep going. There are a lot times when I feel really down and feel like it's never going to happen, then I just put my mind into learning segments of information and forget about how big the challenge may be. Good practice not good luck. Wish you well
Hi, thanks for sharing your experience. I believe that you are learning a lot on this journey and this will help you later, so don't give up. Always remember why you started. Have you tried to find a partner or a community near you to share ideas? Take a look at Indie Hackers, it's a very warm and creative place. Hope you can get come back here to share your product soon :)
Wish you the best too, see you!
Hey Steff, Great article. Thanks for that.
There's one thing I'd like to add. Many people, not only developers, think that running a business has to be something big you can only achieve with a group of people. In my opinion that's not true at all!
As you mentioned, you can start small with an app you wrote completely by yourself and try to sell it. Or you can build a game for Steam, write an eBook or make online course.
For example, I released a game on Steam and created online courses for Udemy. You can do that on your own (although I had a publisher for the game - but that's another story...). The thing I'm struggling with now is marketing. This is way harder than "just" developing a product.
Take care,
Patrick
Patrick, that sounds awesome. Good job and thanks for sharing! That's exactly the spirit, my side project right now can be done only by myself and my boyfriend, for example.
Marketing is indeed the weakness for developers :(. I found some articles that can help, I shared in another comment here, take a look, that might help. I think that like coding, it's something that we will exceed in practice. Good luck and the best!
Hey Steff, just had a look at your shared resources. Looks great! Thank you very much! I think you're right. We just have to keep practicing the marketing aspects and eventually, we'll see the results. :)
Yeah, glad I could help somehow! See you :)
One of the most important things to remember is that ideas are a dime a dozen, but execution is what separates dreamers from doers. About 16 years ago I had a idea that was essentially a combination of twitter and quora. I didn't execute.
It's been said over again but find a problem, validate that others have the same problem, solve it and then plan and execute. It sounds easy, is an order of magnitude harder, totally doable and forever rewarding. Entrepreneurship is not for the undecided, but so very rewarding!
Yeah!!! Thanks for sharing, Andrew. Ideas are only ideas, nothing more if you don't put them in action. Good luck on your projects, the best!
Also as important is timing. Even had you executed, there could have been a myriad of reasons why it wasn't the right time for the product. And let's not forget about luck!
Ha, exactly what I thought. Marketing. Maybe this here, participating in such a discussion, is a kind of marketing, since people may recognize you and checkout your stuff. I dunno.. it's hard to tell.
Of course, there are publishers or other partners that might help, but ideally one is building an audience without a revenue share - since this is the usual way of working with those partners.
I'm a coder 4 life and always have great ideas ;-)
But I also have problems doing proper marketing. I've seen a presentation on marketing for developers recently. The slides are available here: bit.ly/marketing4devs (not my own!)
Thank you for sharing, I am going to take a look!
Hmm yeah, I plan to do this further, for me that is going to take me some time because I don't have all the experience yet. What I am doing now is doing some networking and giving free coaching on Rails Girls and PyLadies communities, so I can build an audience. I already have a goal with this :)
Good luck, Evan, thanks for coming here! My goal right now is to start to sell my product, which is gonna be a big challenge for me, but I expect to learn a lot and expect to have more marketing tips to share!
The best!
Rule of thumb, IMHO:
Technical people(specially developers) may be inclined to develop the state of the art product, using bleeding edge stacks...for failing. Failure is ok and is part of the process. However, the faster we fail, the faster we'll have another chance to make better stuff, and maybe reach our objectives, whatever they are.
Hi, Vinicius! Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Yes, the most terrible failure is to give up. The best!
I would love to go this way.. But I don't find what to do actually. which projects to work on! Any suggestion for that?
Deciding on a project to build is completely subjective. What may be an impassioned and worthwhile endeavor for one developer, will probably not be for another. My suggestion is to start by asking yourself what you like.
The reason I'm working on my primary side-project now is, I realized that I didn't have any tangible proof of my experience with web APIs. I decided to fix that. So, I considered all the services that I consume that have APIs and which I would enjoy working with.
I watch a good deal of content on Twitch.tv and perceived a deficiency in a specific area of the ecosystem. Therefore, I'm now working on a project that consumes the Twitch API and having a blast while doing it. So much so, that if it flops, I won't be concerned, because I'll have proof that I can produce such a product.
I found a thing I like (Twitch), I decided on a general objective (make a thing, using Twitch), and set about working towards it.
I hope that helps. :)
That is an awesome thought! Thanks for sharing
Yes, have you get a chance to see Indie Hackers? There are a lot of resources about this subject, you're not alone!
You mentioned that in your article, I had a look and I thought this isn't useful. I didn't find anything good there, why is that?
Great post! When I was in college in the early '90's I wrote a windows screen saver and started selling it in-line for $10 as shareware (you don't hear that word anymore). I also made a few utilities and an astronomy application for DOS. At the time the Internet was a much smaller place, and one had to be crafty about finding buyers. Anyway, wirh 3 or 4 products I started to sell several licenses per day. Within a year my income was several times higher than what I could have had if I was already graduated and had a full time developer's job. It all happened while I was in college, dedicating maybe 2 or 3 hours a day to it.
Starting a business as a software maker has humble beginnings, and it is powered by a raging fire of passion for a craft. Today the possibilities are endless.
Wow, Lorenzo, you got it really soon! That is really inspirational, thanks for sharing!
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