All advice is circumstantial, and this one seems particularly painted by OP circumstances.
When I got my first job, I was living paycheck to paycheck and partially supporting my family. I can't imagine how could I possibly quit my job to pursue side projects. A few years later I did work in a side project that went nowhere for 2-3 years in a manner similar to how OP describes.
Sometimes dedicating yourself 100% to your own venture is the right call, but this piece seems to assume this is a choice everyone can make easily.
There is reasonable risk, and then there are the gamblers that still live in there parents house...
Most small businesses start with "why isn't there an X for the Y I need right now?", are launched with "a tax strategy" for money you would have to pay anyways, and end with knowing when to execute an exit strategy.
Wise to keep the day job even if part-time, and follow a strict disciplined schedule with reasonable hours. Eventually, revenue may swing you away from your job to a new venture... but most of the time it won't.
Small business is not for gamblers, and Apps are a fragmented long-tail market.
Rule #23: Don't compete to be at the bottom, as you just might actually win. =3
This article hits close to home for me! Coincidentally, I also started making apps in high school using REALbasic, before moving on to my first "real" language Perl, and am also working on launching a new app now [1].
On the article's point of "don't underdevelop," for launch I ended up trying to follow the SLC philosophy [2], a cousin of MVP. I managed to stick to the "S" with mixed success :-).
My own two cents for anyone out there thinking of trying your own thing: it's discouraging sometimes to read the flood of comments about survivorship bias, the need for luck or connections, the doom-y statistics about the percentage of companies that fail. Are these viewpoints based in fact? Yes, probably. Should you take the leap and try your own thing anyway? Also yes.
Reflect and decide ahead of time what your definition of success is for your venture. Money, satisfaction, adventure, idealism, hope: all are equally valid definitions of success, and just because someone may have a different definition does not invalidate your own. Work out your budget to see what you can realistically spend and for how long. Then go to work!
We are fortunate as software engineers that our field allows so much creative expression from just our brains and keyboards. Software can be almost a living thing, "pure thought-stuff, infinitely malleable" [3]. If your circumstances allow, it certainly deserves your attention, and the fact that sometimes it can produce economic value is a side effect, IMHO.
FWIW, Fred Brooks has a quote that is similar in spirit to the one you mentioned. It's in Chapter 1, The Tar Pit (under the title The Joys of the Craft):
> Finally, there is the delight of working in such a tractable medium. The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by the exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures…
I could keep up side projects before I had kids, but now... I've learned you have to focus on your health with whatever time you have left in the day/weekend, no matter how excited you are about some idea.
It’s possible to have both kids and side projects, just involve them. I used to hang around my dad’s shed doing random stuff when he would do his woodworking side projects, and sometimes he would show me cool things and let me cut wood. It probably helps though if you have the “right” kind of kid for this stuff.
I was thinking in the context where you'd like to potentially monetize the side project as some point. But definitely, I spend a lot of time supporting my son's Minecraft obsession, and since he's already expressed great interest in building mods I think that's something we'll do together that could be considered a side project.
In fact... I see a possible future where I have a collaborator worth his salt :)
> The unfortunate thing about this is that going through the support emails in my case is something that takes about 2-3 hours a day
Are there stats or more stories anywhere for support time per day for different kinds of apps?
So the apps I make, I usually aim to make them solo and run them solo. This can involve making choices like avoiding certain apps or features that I think will require too more support. I've managed to keep support emails low so far, but I'm curious what the average hours per day for different kinds of app is now.
For example, I have an on-page SEO checking app (https://www.checkbot.io/) and most of my support emails are about how to fix some specific SEO problem. These can often be quite technical and website specific so harder to automate away (LLM chat would probably help), but are surprisingly rare. When I started, I'd get more emails about problems signing up, logging in, recovering passwords and payment issues, but I've managed to get rid of a lot of these via improving the docs, better FAQ, and automating common issues.
I found mentioning response times in the intro live chat message helps e.g. "A human will reply if you need help (usually within a few hours on weekdays) but it's quicker if you check the FAQ first for common questions like ...".
The app is also a browser extension, vs a native/Electron app, which was partly a choice to avoid platform specific issues and making the app simple to install and update. Because I had to code my own login and payment system though, this naturally attracts support requests you probably wouldn't get for e.g. Android/iOS apps.
I found I got roughly one support email per sale, it was remarkably consistent over the 23 years I was doing it. Of course not every person who raised an issue bought the product and most people who purchased didn't contact me. The ratio held though.
I've recently embarked on indie app development [1]. It's exciting but my first lesson has been how slow things move. Just submitting to the stores, waiting, getting users... already takes months.
One of my fears is not being able to take vacation, as the OP explains. I'm working alone and had the impression hiring someone for customer support would be doable. Anyone with experience in this regard? AI also seems a good use case here.
There are 2 kinds of vacations: Backpacking, Cruise ships or something where you can not connect, OR sightseeing like London, Paris, or even something local.
Although I have always been an employee, I have been able to mix and match work with sightseeing travels all the time. And this was not remote work, this was weekdays and weekends just checking emails and action items 1 hour in the morning and 1 hour in the night to 1) keep up, and 2) take care of things. Did I have to do that? No, but I like to.
And on one trip, I remember I was coding too. There was a problem I was trying to solve and I was way behind schedule, so I would fix one issue AM and one issue PM and test more and more. Once again, did I have to do that? Did my company force me to? Nope. Just something I wanted to take care of. And the day was available for family and sightseeing and I guess subconsciously plot my next bug fix.
I think opportunities for asynchronous communication can be created if A) you are motivated and B) your vacation schedule is not too extreme. This should be even easier with a product you own and understand and when your business is at stake.
> The unfortunate thing about this is that going through the support emails in my case is something that takes about 2-3 hours a day – which is not enough to hire someone and train them. Not to mention that most of the reports actually need some technical knowledge. So unless I would hire another developer, in the end, the really administrative stuff that someone could do instead of me is a 30-minute-a-day job.
This part hits home for me. I only have 1 app to support and the volume is low, well below the 100/day the author gets, but it can still be a struggle to get myself to get in there and write the replies. It’s all easy “on paper” but it becomes more of a mental game that’s hard to even describe without sounding like an idiot.
I’ve tried hiring some help and ran into the same thing where some problems were just too technical, and I had to hop in. It was wonderful to have their help for all the other stuff, but tough to justify the cost.
It seems like an area where AI could help draft replies that I could read over before sending. If that could even get to 50% correct based on past conversations it’d be pretty great. (Or who knows, maybe this is the kind of thing you build and then realize it creates more problems than it solves)
I quit my remote job at a call center (basically working on my computer all day) and instead I got another one as a medical interpreter in person, now working on my own project even more hours that before, it feels better
Even though at 50 I would rather get a daily anal probe with a cactus than ever work for BigTech (again), I can’t come up with a scenario where it makes more sense to be an independent app dev than just “grind leetcode and work for a FAANG (or equivalent)” (tm r/cscareerquestions).
I like money just appearing in my account every week and when I was working for BigTech public liquid stock appearing in my brokerage account every vesting period.
> Don’t get a job.
All advice is circumstantial, and this one seems particularly painted by OP circumstances.
When I got my first job, I was living paycheck to paycheck and partially supporting my family. I can't imagine how could I possibly quit my job to pursue side projects. A few years later I did work in a side project that went nowhere for 2-3 years in a manner similar to how OP describes.
Sometimes dedicating yourself 100% to your own venture is the right call, but this piece seems to assume this is a choice everyone can make easily.
There is reasonable risk, and then there are the gamblers that still live in there parents house...
Most small businesses start with "why isn't there an X for the Y I need right now?", are launched with "a tax strategy" for money you would have to pay anyways, and end with knowing when to execute an exit strategy.
Wise to keep the day job even if part-time, and follow a strict disciplined schedule with reasonable hours. Eventually, revenue may swing you away from your job to a new venture... but most of the time it won't.
Small business is not for gamblers, and Apps are a fragmented long-tail market.
Rule #23: Don't compete to be at the bottom, as you just might actually win. =3
This article hits close to home for me! Coincidentally, I also started making apps in high school using REALbasic, before moving on to my first "real" language Perl, and am also working on launching a new app now [1].
On the article's point of "don't underdevelop," for launch I ended up trying to follow the SLC philosophy [2], a cousin of MVP. I managed to stick to the "S" with mixed success :-).
My own two cents for anyone out there thinking of trying your own thing: it's discouraging sometimes to read the flood of comments about survivorship bias, the need for luck or connections, the doom-y statistics about the percentage of companies that fail. Are these viewpoints based in fact? Yes, probably. Should you take the leap and try your own thing anyway? Also yes.
Reflect and decide ahead of time what your definition of success is for your venture. Money, satisfaction, adventure, idealism, hope: all are equally valid definitions of success, and just because someone may have a different definition does not invalidate your own. Work out your budget to see what you can realistically spend and for how long. Then go to work!
We are fortunate as software engineers that our field allows so much creative expression from just our brains and keyboards. Software can be almost a living thing, "pure thought-stuff, infinitely malleable" [3]. If your circumstances allow, it certainly deserves your attention, and the fact that sometimes it can produce economic value is a side effect, IMHO.
[1] - App for technical and engineering diagrams: https://app.vexlio.com/
[2] - Simple, Lovable, Complete: https://longform.asmartbear.com/slc/
[3] - Fred Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month, can't remember which essay.
FWIW, Fred Brooks has a quote that is similar in spirit to the one you mentioned. It's in Chapter 1, The Tar Pit (under the title The Joys of the Craft):
> Finally, there is the delight of working in such a tractable medium. The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by the exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures…
Thank you, that's exactly the passage I was looking for!
I could keep up side projects before I had kids, but now... I've learned you have to focus on your health with whatever time you have left in the day/weekend, no matter how excited you are about some idea.
It’s possible to have both kids and side projects, just involve them. I used to hang around my dad’s shed doing random stuff when he would do his woodworking side projects, and sometimes he would show me cool things and let me cut wood. It probably helps though if you have the “right” kind of kid for this stuff.
I was thinking in the context where you'd like to potentially monetize the side project as some point. But definitely, I spend a lot of time supporting my son's Minecraft obsession, and since he's already expressed great interest in building mods I think that's something we'll do together that could be considered a side project.
In fact... I see a possible future where I have a collaborator worth his salt :)
Funny how it's a month-old post referring to Skype being dead, with Microsoft announcing it's killing Skype just a few days ago.
> The unfortunate thing about this is that going through the support emails in my case is something that takes about 2-3 hours a day
Are there stats or more stories anywhere for support time per day for different kinds of apps?
So the apps I make, I usually aim to make them solo and run them solo. This can involve making choices like avoiding certain apps or features that I think will require too more support. I've managed to keep support emails low so far, but I'm curious what the average hours per day for different kinds of app is now.
For example, I have an on-page SEO checking app (https://www.checkbot.io/) and most of my support emails are about how to fix some specific SEO problem. These can often be quite technical and website specific so harder to automate away (LLM chat would probably help), but are surprisingly rare. When I started, I'd get more emails about problems signing up, logging in, recovering passwords and payment issues, but I've managed to get rid of a lot of these via improving the docs, better FAQ, and automating common issues.
I found mentioning response times in the intro live chat message helps e.g. "A human will reply if you need help (usually within a few hours on weekdays) but it's quicker if you check the FAQ first for common questions like ...".
The app is also a browser extension, vs a native/Electron app, which was partly a choice to avoid platform specific issues and making the app simple to install and update. Because I had to code my own login and payment system though, this naturally attracts support requests you probably wouldn't get for e.g. Android/iOS apps.
I found I got roughly one support email per sale, it was remarkably consistent over the 23 years I was doing it. Of course not every person who raised an issue bought the product and most people who purchased didn't contact me. The ratio held though.
I've recently embarked on indie app development [1]. It's exciting but my first lesson has been how slow things move. Just submitting to the stores, waiting, getting users... already takes months.
One of my fears is not being able to take vacation, as the OP explains. I'm working alone and had the impression hiring someone for customer support would be doable. Anyone with experience in this regard? AI also seems a good use case here.
[1] https://speedbumpapp.com/en/blog/v1/
There are 2 kinds of vacations: Backpacking, Cruise ships or something where you can not connect, OR sightseeing like London, Paris, or even something local.
Although I have always been an employee, I have been able to mix and match work with sightseeing travels all the time. And this was not remote work, this was weekdays and weekends just checking emails and action items 1 hour in the morning and 1 hour in the night to 1) keep up, and 2) take care of things. Did I have to do that? No, but I like to.
And on one trip, I remember I was coding too. There was a problem I was trying to solve and I was way behind schedule, so I would fix one issue AM and one issue PM and test more and more. Once again, did I have to do that? Did my company force me to? Nope. Just something I wanted to take care of. And the day was available for family and sightseeing and I guess subconsciously plot my next bug fix.
I think opportunities for asynchronous communication can be created if A) you are motivated and B) your vacation schedule is not too extreme. This should be even easier with a product you own and understand and when your business is at stake.
My favorite one is unfortunately backpacking. But thank you for your perspective!
> The unfortunate thing about this is that going through the support emails in my case is something that takes about 2-3 hours a day – which is not enough to hire someone and train them. Not to mention that most of the reports actually need some technical knowledge. So unless I would hire another developer, in the end, the really administrative stuff that someone could do instead of me is a 30-minute-a-day job.
This part hits home for me. I only have 1 app to support and the volume is low, well below the 100/day the author gets, but it can still be a struggle to get myself to get in there and write the replies. It’s all easy “on paper” but it becomes more of a mental game that’s hard to even describe without sounding like an idiot.
I’ve tried hiring some help and ran into the same thing where some problems were just too technical, and I had to hop in. It was wonderful to have their help for all the other stuff, but tough to justify the cost.
It seems like an area where AI could help draft replies that I could read over before sending. If that could even get to 50% correct based on past conversations it’d be pretty great. (Or who knows, maybe this is the kind of thing you build and then realize it creates more problems than it solves)
I quit my remote job at a call center (basically working on my computer all day) and instead I got another one as a medical interpreter in person, now working on my own project even more hours that before, it feels better
Even though at 50 I would rather get a daily anal probe with a cactus than ever work for BigTech (again), I can’t come up with a scenario where it makes more sense to be an independent app dev than just “grind leetcode and work for a FAANG (or equivalent)” (tm r/cscareerquestions).
I like money just appearing in my account every week and when I was working for BigTech public liquid stock appearing in my brokerage account every vesting period.
Just to clarify your current order of preferences:
1. Get a daily anal probe with a cactus 2. Work for BigTech 3. Be an independent app dev
Interesting how taste can change over time.
If life for you is mainly accruing cash and stock, then yes, by all means do that.
Yes because I have this insatiable addiction to food and shelter and I need cash to exchange for goods and services to support those addictions.
Why would I work harder for less money?
So I can assume everybody who doesn't work at a FAANG is starving and homeless?
From my original comment…
> Even though at 50 I would rather get a daily anal probe with a cactus than ever work for BigTech (again)
But I bet almost anyone can make more as an enterprise CRUD developer than trying to be an independent app developer.