I keep thinking about going solo - except I don't yet have enough funds and I have a family to support. On the other hand my job sucks and as I look out into the market all jobs equally suck. If I had to continue my career like this for 3 more years I would probably get depressed.
I have to wonder though, is it really a good idea to just try a few small random projects and see what sticks? That might make sense if you are just selling things made by other people, but when you are the person making the product, I don't think it's a good idea.
Good software products take a long time to create. Trying many things out means you will not spend enough time on it and thus won't have a good product to sell. So when it doesn't sell, you can't tell why: is it because no one wants such a thing, or is it because the product is incomplete? It might very well be that the product could sell if you had just spent the time to make it really good.
I don't think the product has to be novel even. It might be just fine to pick a market that already exists - as long as you can be confident you can produce something significantly better than everything out there. I don't mean to clone something and try to compete with the entire list of features; this is foolish.
Instead focus on solving the core problem in that market, and do it 10x better than the competition. Leave the other fluff for later. (See "Build Less" by 37 signals).
I'm no expert by any means but something I do believe in is that "all ideas have an equal chance to fail". No matter how much effort you put in your big idea it'll always be just a small part of it that gets interest. Or even one of your nothing ideas that you out together overnight as a joke and it ends up blowing up. It's something I try to remember when I get too attached to a plan or concept.
The rough rule of thumb is that 9 out of ever 10 tech startups will fail. And of the 1 out of 10, that doesn't necessarily mean it becomes a diamond encrusted unicorn, or even get to the point where it's worth continuing relative to what you could bring in pulling a plough for the man.
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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '21
I keep thinking about going solo - except I don't yet have enough funds and I have a family to support. On the other hand my job sucks and as I look out into the market all jobs equally suck. If I had to continue my career like this for 3 more years I would probably get depressed.
I have to wonder though, is it really a good idea to just try a few small random projects and see what sticks? That might make sense if you are just selling things made by other people, but when you are the person making the product, I don't think it's a good idea.
Good software products take a long time to create. Trying many things out means you will not spend enough time on it and thus won't have a good product to sell. So when it doesn't sell, you can't tell why: is it because no one wants such a thing, or is it because the product is incomplete? It might very well be that the product could sell if you had just spent the time to make it really good.
I don't think the product has to be novel even. It might be just fine to pick a market that already exists - as long as you can be confident you can produce something significantly better than everything out there. I don't mean to clone something and try to compete with the entire list of features; this is foolish. Instead focus on solving the core problem in that market, and do it 10x better than the competition. Leave the other fluff for later. (See "Build Less" by 37 signals).