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Any wantreprenuers here?
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2015-06-27 at 7:49 AM UTCSo how many of you dream of being an entrepreneur but then obediently slog to your day job?
I don't know when this bug bit me but it's been in the back of my head for quite some time now. Started off by reading blogs, then some ebooks that directly relate to my field (programming), and I've caught myself thinking that instead of reading shit I should actually go do shit.
One of my ideas depends on making programming-themed merchandise that geeks/hipsters would like to have on their desks. I have all the materials but I've been hesitating on starting out. Another idea is a community based lending service ie. lend out your power tools instead of having them lying around, lend out your furniture or cooking wares. I would use a service like that but it sounds like it'd have to be super strict geographically because who'd wanna rent a drill from some dude in a different country? Yet another idea revolves around creating an ebook that takes you from start to finish on creating a piece of software that would level up your skills, but I'd first have to learn and build that piece of software myself. My last idea was to check out if there's some brokerage opportunity on sites like fiverr. Maybe there's a class of services on there that could use a more customized portal?
Well, ideas are a dime a dozen. Gotta get off my ass and put some work into one of those or else I'll be stuck building someone else's dreams instead of my own. -
2015-06-27 at 8:32 AM UTCThere's definitely a lot of people that fit that description in my neck of the woods. I think Paul Graham was devastatingly effective in rolling a certain flavor of entrepreneurialism into mainstream programmer culture which tbh I resent a little bit. I have no problem with people wanting to start their own businesses and bring a new product to market. I came close to doing the same with a hobby project I was working on with a friend. But I think it has, in some sense, marginalized the fact that programmers primarily... write programs. Most of us have zero special access to market information, the only thing that makes this programmers-as-entrepreneurs image feasible is that there's a class of products that require programmers to build and some of us luck out in picking a good idea to go implement. But it seems to draw people who aren't interested in the craft of programming first but rather the more motivated sort of "idea people" who are in the field to make their product and retire or whatever. IDK, maybe that's just me being a curmudgeon but sometimes I wish a few more of my coworkers were interested in automata theory and compilers and a few less in building the next big social network.The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire!
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2015-06-28 at 9:36 AM UTCHa, that hits close to home. Paul Graham is a bit charming for anyone taking a look at bringing a product to the market, but it's easy to realize that what Paul Graham writes about it good for Paul Graham. It's great kool-aid but soon the artificial flavor starts to scratch at your throat.
Mind me asking about that hobby project? In my case I feel that doing something like this would realize a desire to produce something I am proud of, something that would genuinely solve someone's problems. I think Ive had bad luck as all the places Ive worked at pushed for tight deadlines and after a short while I began to hate my job because it put severe constraints on my work - I could never make something that I'm proud of, only things that looked nice but barely worked.
I feel that while programmers have no special access to market information, the sole skill or programming, of pushing information, transforming it, and pushing it further along is a skill that could apply to a wide range of situations - everything from the post office to banking to a lot of other things. When I think of companies like uber or airbnb, I see them as a service that increases information symmetry in the market, making it easier for people to act the nice little rational agents economics talks about.
It's funny that you mention "building the next big social network". One agency that I worked for had to build a social network for interior decorators. I had zero drive to make that a reality and quit soon. -
2015-07-07 at 5:33 PM UTCI have a few old-school hustles, some actually semi-legal, and work a few hours a day and make just enough money to pay my mortgage and insurance and buy lots of opiates because my body is ruined from hard living, menial labor jobs and car accidents. I can be pretty creative at times. But I am just not into 'making' stuff or making ideas come to life or whatever the fuck you would call it.
Sometimes I have entrepreneurial ideas, but I never act on them, like when I was a teenager I had an idea for a masturbation glove for women, where each finger had a different textured surface so they could rub their clits and the thumb would be like a mini-dildo.
I had an idea for a hard rubber 'insert' type of molded shape that would fit into a broken car window, cheap to produce and affordably priced, so people don't have to go around with plastic bags duct taped to the door frame.
I had and have a ton more ideas, but I don't really know where to go after the idea stage, so it just ends there. -
2015-07-08 at 6:09 PM UTCI guess I didn't explain the window thing properly. You know how those candles in the glass jars have the lids with the clear plastic or rubber seal? My window covering would have a softer, rubbery version of that, somewhat pliable, that would 'wedge' itself into the broken window space, and the clear covering would be larger than the seal, and serve as a transparent barrier and windscreen. I would think that the sheer variety of shapes of the back windows of cars, and the rarity of people having broken back windows, would make this idea less than feasible to manufacture.
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2015-07-08 at 7:10 PM UTCI quit my job but now I have no capital to start a business with, but when I was working full time I never had free time to start a business.
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2015-07-09 at 1:12 AM UTCMy company owns my ideas, so, no. Unless I want to be the next dpr. Or something else so shady it's not tied to a physical identity.
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2015-07-10 at 6:50 PM UTCIwant to kill a real entrepreneur and wear its skin
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2015-07-16 at 12:25 AM UTC
I guess I didn't explain the window thing properly. You know how those candles in the glass jars have the lids with the clear plastic or rubber seal? My window covering would have a softer, rubbery version of that, somewhat pliable, that would 'wedge' itself into the broken window space, and the clear covering would be larger than the seal, and serve as a transparent barrier and windscreen. I would think that the sheer variety of shapes of the back windows of cars, and the rarity of people having broken back windows, would make this idea less than feasible to manufacture.
That's a pretty good idea, would of worked beter back in the da when most car glass was just flat. I could see it working like one of those pop up clthes hampers tho -
2015-07-16 at 1:51 AM UTCThe masturbation glove would've made you a wealthy son-of-a-bitch Mike.
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2015-07-17 at 3:31 AM UTC
The masturbation glove would've made you a wealthy son-of-a-bitch Mike.
I wanted to open up my own 'shoplifting supply' store, that sold booster bags, custom jackets and pants with shoplifter-friendly pockets and a small blade on a drawstring that could like, cut open packages and stuff, reversible in muted contrasting colors of course, and a hat with a small mirror on it that flips down so you can see behind you. Maybe other stuff like a license plate mount with velcro strips around the outside, included with fake, realistic looking license plates that can stick on and come off fast (I've....done some things where I needed to disguise my plates, ok?) cell phone jammers, custom made electronics, and and other criminal implements.
I have tons of ideas, some shittier than the others, but motivation is a problem with me -
2015-07-18 at 4:02 PM UTCI was thinking some more last night about the car window thing. I think it is doable, I would lean in the direction of a product that people would have to assemble for themselves, like, say, a set of wires or light metal strips that can be molded to the shape of the window, then a transparent plastic piece with slits or grommets, that slides over the metal strips, and the plastic is possibly inflatable or something.
I'm probably never going to do any of this stuff because I am content to do my scams and deals, and that already takes up most of my creative energy. All the stuff I wrote about in this thread are just my daydreams. -
2015-12-19 at 2:38 AM UTCI'm in college and not content with working for a dim-witted boss for the next 20 years in the hopes I move up the corporate ladder... If anyone wants to start a business, hit me up. I'm more than capable of giving 110% if it's viable. I'm interested in finance and stock market stuff, but also anything that's profitable. Seems like there are already some great ideas being thrown out there.
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2015-12-19 at 3:23 AM UTC
Mind me asking about that hobby project? In my case I feel that doing something like this would realize a desire to produce something I am proud of, something that would genuinely solve someone's problems. I think Ive had bad luck as all the places Ive worked at pushed for tight deadlines and after a short while I began to hate my job because it put severe constraints on my work - I could never make something that I'm proud of, only things that looked nice but barely worked.
Know it's been a long ass time since this post was made but on the off chance you're still around it was a cryptography scheme for email that would make subpoenas generally ineffective. Kinda like hushmail but technically better (at the cost of some corner cases being (maybe) unintuitive). It was really fun because I got to implement crypto in javascript which actually worked (despite that being, in general, a bad idea) and tackle a whole host of other interesting but solvable problems (I ended up writing this whole parser-generation framework which served in interpreting emails and email addresses (ironically the RFC specifying an email address grammar (which basically everyone ignores) is far more complicated than the RFC specifying email grammar))). The plan was, more or less, to store public keys for users and encrypt email on receipt before storage which is fairly simple but has a surprising number of complicating cases and pitfalls. It would make providing plaintext records to LEO impossible and thus subpoenas (in the traditional sense of a request for data at a given point in time) useless. We started the project shortly after the Snowden/lavabit thing in an effort to "replace" lavabit (defunct) with something better.I'm in college and not content with working for a dim-witted boss for the next 20 years in the hopes I move up the corporate ladder… If anyone wants to start a business, hit me up. I'm more than capable of giving 110% if it's viable. I'm interested in finance and stock market stuff, but also anything that's profitable. Seems like there are already some great ideas being thrown out there.
This feels like a joke post. I think this is a joke post. Is this a joke post? -
2015-12-19 at 6:58 AM UTCThat's you! Me, I always think money. No one in the world will deny me of that. I was poor my whole teen years I rather die then to suffer the rest of my adult life being poor again or having a minimum job barely getting by. Pussies go out that way, real gangsters choose their outcome.
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2015-12-19 at 8:15 PM UTCI am. I actually have a decent idea for something that I need but not quite the skills. I have most of the skills but I need to learn(or find somebody) that knows a little bit about RasPi development(as far as the physical part goes). It's a security related thing. Searching for something already like it and I come up emptyhanded.
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2016-01-08 at 7:54 AM UTC
I am. I actually have a decent idea for something that I need but not quite the skills. I have most of the skills but I need to learn(or find somebody) that knows a little bit about RasPi development(as far as the physical part goes). It's a security related thing. Searching for something already like it and I come up emptyhanded.
Hey man, don't second guess yourself like this. I've been reading your posts for a while now, at least since Zoklet, and you seem to know your shit pretty well. I'd say just go for it.Know it's been a long ass time since this post was made but on the off chance you're still around it was a cryptography scheme for email that would make subpoenas generally ineffective. Kinda like hushmail but technically better (at the cost of some corner cases being (maybe) unintuitive). It was really fun because I got to implement crypto in javascript which actually worked (despite that being, in general, a bad idea) and tackle a whole host of other interesting but solvable problems (I ended up writing this whole parser-generation framework which served in interpreting emails and email addresses (ironically the RFC specifying an email address grammar (which basically everyone ignores) is far more complicated than the RFC specifying email grammar))). The plan was, more or less, to store public keys for users and encrypt email on receipt before storage which is fairly simple but has a surprising number of complicating cases and pitfalls. It would make providing plaintext records to LEO impossible and thus subpoenas (in the traditional sense of a request for data at a given point in time) useless. We started the project shortly after the Snowden/lavabit thing in an effort to "replace" lavabit (defunct) with something better.
Whoa, nice idea. What were the pitfalls and obstacles that you ran into? I can see implementing crypto in JS being a pretty big obstacle in itself, what with browsers being a fucking behemoth of shit glued together. Did it ever get off the ground?
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I've been inactive here since August because of work. Now I'm back partially because of getting fired. Luckily, not for performance reasons - half the company got fired too (fuck using phrases like "let go"). Now I've got time to think. Yeah, I know, this ain't my personal blog so the on-topic thing I wanted to shared was that I'm looking at becoming a freelancer purely because this allows me more control over my capital*, and, what more importantly, it gives me a chance to practice all those skills that atrophy when you're shackled to a desk, mopping up shitty code, in an open-plan office, for 8 hours a day.
My plan is to ramp up my freelance business so that I can support myself but keep my work hours on the lower side to have time to develop a product. That or maybe starting a coders cooperative to increase bargaining power vs. the market.
*[SIZE=9px] This is a reference to those fucking contract clauses like "all code written anytime ever while this contract is valid belong to the company. Yeah, that sweet bot you wrote while on vacation at 2am? OURS you fucking prole".[/SIZE]
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