My Official business thread - Humble beginnings

[synergy1]

I just read your latest update and it reminded me of my own experience . I was more or less in the same situation (programming an app toolkit though) and also had those feelings of burnout afterw working 1/2 year with little to no fun in between.

What's most importantly: how many beta testers / potential clients do you have?
If I were to set up my start up again, I'd start from the customer site (ie: pitch your product to potential customers => get them interested to comment on pitch => first mock up => new customer reactions => get reactions => and only then start actually programming)

Very glad to hear that this is not a unique experience.

I just reinvented the idea a few days ago. My goal in doing this application is mostly to practice programming/web development, and to create something I would use ( since nothing like it exists at the moment). For all practical purposes I have no beta testers at the present, but could probably get a few hundred just through social media, investing websites etc.

The short term plan is to sketch out what it should include, and the project timeline and deliverables. I am giving this a few months, but in reality I could probably have something working in a few weeks. The goal is as much a product, as it is to learn the skill of making the product.

How did your start up end up doing? What kind of time line would you suggest for putting in time to program features, vs. getting the program out there and getting feedback? One week? One month?

 

[AlanAlan]

I read out your interesting and informative post. It is really great ideas. Sure will be referrence long into the future.

whole detail

 

[synergy1]

Another update:

I am building up a back end with the initial data I will need for my web application. I had originally budgeted one month to do it, but I will need significantly less time to get all the data and put it into a database. The lesson here is that by continuing to learn things , one will eventually come to a point where these things will shorten the time it takes tasks that seem difficult.

Next the efficacy of the data will need to be checked. For that, I will borrow sampling plans used by the American National Standards Institute. This will also aid in debugging the runtime errors in calculations that I performed. Overall, this data set will be over 6000 separate entities long. Once I can reduce the errors of each sampling, I can be comfortable that the program is working on ALL of the points.

This is a big step in the right direction.

Next up :

-Creating the front end: Will be using Angular JS, jQuery to do the front end. Will be good practice to go from understanding to mastery.

-Creating the back end: Will be employing test driven development methods. The data from the database ( as mentioned) will be ready to be used.

-Spreading the word: Asking other folks in the space would like for features. Now is the time to build them.

And I have gone from a time based effort to a mile stone based effort in order to alleviate burnout. If I complete a task, I can afford to go on a date, or meet some friends. Realistic goals, and milestones are planned about 2-3 months out with time for vacation and other real world stuff.

The beauty is that there is no "rush" to get this done. My job is pouring cash into my accounts, and the longer I spend to do the right thing...the better the product. That said, I am still looking to have a prototype ready by fall, and be looking to relocate and find co-founders.

Hope everyone is enjoying these updates, or better yet...applying some bits to their own lives.

 

[synergy1]

Figured I'd update this as things have changed, but for the better:

I have been doing less "desk" work, and more networking and hitting the pavement these days. It seems to be paying off. After some bad times at my J.O.B, I sent an updated CV out and managed to get interest from a friend who runs a international company and wants me to take an active role in finding investable companies. The nice thing is two fold- (1) I am able to incorporate and basically start a consulting business in (2) an area I have devoted a large amount of my efforts to study in the past several years. It will not be full time, but we plan to sell our services on periodic basis. Whats more is that I believe I can negotiate small ownership stake in whatever we find.

This does not mean that the programming and web development idea is being shelved at all. In fact quite the opposite. The current project I am working on fill that need perfectly, and can be developed to suit their investment needs. It will be a easy to use transparent web program to conduct due diligence of companies and keep all the data in one spot ( if anyone knows a program that does this please let me know). I did some quick searches for this general type of program and found nothing - much as I did for the investing program I am writing.

The plan of action is:

1- Get both companies off the ground

2- Build out the back end of the prototype to the investing program i was already working on. The front end is well underway and looks presentable.

3- Continue to network with people as everyone I have talked to likes these ideas and wants to try them. ( early adapters and early feedback)

4- Create an online presence for the consulting business.

5- Get to work and scour the world for investment opportunities.

This is getting more involved and fun as it goes. In time I will need to quit my job just to put in the effort. There are certainly ups and downs to be certain. The hard work has yet to "pay off", but I feel it will.

 

[AAAgent]

Keep it up my brother.

The most successful people are the ones who tough it out through the sh1t and that's what weeds out the successful from everyone else. I like how you're keeping an open mind and trying different approaches to get to your goal.

Keep us posted and don't be afraid to share setbacks, as it allows you to take a clear look back to see what improvements can be made. Sometimes it sucks to fail and get hit hard. It sucks even more when people rub it in say I told you so. But those type of people will never understand and when you do start becoming successful, they'll be the ones who believe in you and champion more than others because it took them that much more proof to sway them.

People like us, who try over and over again are the ones who make the human race so remarkable, because we're the ones who made the impossible, possible. It's our world, and everyone else just lives in it.

 

[synergy1]

Thanks man. Glad to see you are also back at it - per your other thread.

One thing I am realizing is that things always change...especially plans. As I read this, the general course has been set, but new things keep coming up that seem better. For example, my idea is morphing into a more general concept which (much to my surprise) has a gap in the market as far as I can tell.

For example, my online investing program (which is more of a web application) is morphing into something else. The more one reads, the more one realizes gaps in the market. What is also cool is that my program will be completely congruent with the work I need to do. Necessity is the best invention.

As for setbacks, I would say that I wish I was further along in my web programming than I am. Sometimes it get frustrating putting in the time, but its not as nice as I envisioned. Granted its just a prototype afterall.

Speaking of changed plans:

1- The consulting business is official more or less. Now I am developing the process frameworks. All the misc crap is getting done too.

2- I plan on finishing up the web application prototype in august.

3- A simple website for the consulting business is in the works. I decided against designing every pixel of a site, and used a baseline template to start and modified it. I know enough html/css/javascript to make it interactive.

4- Create a personal portfolio web site outside my github account. This can wait.

5- Take online classes for front end and back end web development in the fall.

Right now I think I can get enough to live off from the consulting gig, and will be at a point in 12 months where I can also co-found a company with my ideas. The idea is being envisioned, and will be built during the coursework ( they encourage building a real world application).

 

[AAAgent]

Glad to hear things are going well brotha. Still have a bit of trouble understanding your business/product but sounds like the ball is rolling.

 

[synergy1]

I wouldn't say the ball is rolling as much as I'd like it to be. Honestly, my programming project has taken a back seat slightly. However, the current project I am working on for a client requires a slightly different direction (but still deals with investments), so I have been focusing on Due Dilligence Frameworks. Ultimately, I plan on making software that assists with this process since it seems that there isn't much out there from my brief research.

My software idea ( key word here, the concept needs work) is to create a web based application that everyone contributors pieces of Due Dilligence too. The angle is "value investing" so folks who understand the basics of research will find this familiar. Basically, you type a stock in and search for it. My database has stock info ( price, P/E, EPS, certain ratios etc). This is ment to give you a 30,000 foot view of the equity in question. Now, the community will be given a framework of choices that professional fund managers would explore - people can contribute a fact regarding the listing. For example, an oil company that just decreased its rig counts or something of that nature. The community would than peer review the fact thereby giving it a level of efficacy. Do this enough times and you have a listing of stocks with an interesting story that will help people invest.

The assumptions are as follows , and will be revised after a prototype hits the market:

1- People want to willingly contribute facts regarding stock

2- People can accurately contribute facts regarding stock.

3- People will use something different to check facts on stock

As it stands there is no good content agglomerator out there for investing in stocks using fundamental analysis. Gurufocus is great with the numbers and gets the news. Seeking alpha is awesome for getting great articles. I love insider monkey for tracking insiders. But nothing quite does what I think would be helpful to other investors in the market place. I plan to change that.

And to spin off this idea, I plan on creating propietary software that assists with this entire process. Talking to a few people in VC, most people don't really have anything.



1-

 

[AAAgent]

you should check out hotstockmarket forums. I go there often and post every now and then but they have a small community of very active people. THey're more traders than investors but value investing is pretty interesting to both parties, imo.

 

[synergy1]

It has been nearly 1 year since this thread was started. The hopes of starting this thread was to outline a goal and actually see how it would progress. The overall goal has remained the same - to build something on investing using software. This aspect is still going strong. While things have changed, all changes has broadened my skill set and knowledge.

Here has what has been accomplished: The online personal portfolio, and a companies website ( a small consulting company I put together). My github account has some cool projects that showcase some real programming. The best part is that its only getting started. The original plan was to have a prototype by now, but I shifted gears in September to pick up some new skills. My interests are still aligned in finance so I worked that angle in order to create a simple strategy testing platform using a variety of supervised and unsupervised statistical learning models. To supplement this, I build an object oriented event driven backtester program. The beauty of this system is that the parts are hot swappable - you can change a strategy and portfolio risk parameters to your liking. It also allows others to work on it and help try new ideas simultaneously. This will be my personal project hereafter.

What has changed: I decided against taking programming classes. There is nothing you can't learn by reading books, picking up programs, and getting something done. These classes are designed for people looking to make a real change into development. I've worked with computers my whole life, and a portfolio/ projects are a better way to accomplish this than to shell out thousands of dollars to learn something. As was anticipated, the consulting business has been largely stagnant. The co founder is more interested in his 9-5 and has been a limited contributor in the effort. He borrows the role from his last job as a helper, not a self starting entrepreneur. While the idea is shelved for now, unless he starts being pro active, I will be pursuing my own goals. There is more than enough to stay busy!

As for goals, the financial web platform is still on the docket. I created the due diligence platform which will be the overlay for the site. I am in the process of acquiring data on over 5500 companies financial reports into a mySQL backend. Acquiring annual and interim income statement, cash flow and balance sheet reports has provided me with over 1 million data points to play with. Here are the next steps:

1- Start creating the back end API and server for the application using python and Django. This will deal with handling data, managing users, and dealing with the due diligence framework area of the website.

2- Revamp the front end using the usual html/css/javascript along with a front end framework such as angular or backbone js. The site will be fully functional using the newest web standards. It will be view-able on all devices, and look really ****ing sexy (for a prototype)

3- Link up the front and and back end.

4- Deploy on Heroku or AWS by June a prototype. The site will be viewable by all and usable by all!

This all will be performed with my normal 9-5. I'll be applying to small companies as a developer/programmer role with an emphasis on ownership stake in the company. The jobs in this field pay more than my current job and my background won't require much justification for the switch. By halfway through 2016, I anticipate having the prototype finished and deployed. While working a new job, I will start the business development surrounding my idea. This will include seeking a co founder, putting together a strategy, getting early users and maybe even pitching to investors. This is where the real fun begins if it takes off, but I am allowing some leeway to gain some experience as a developer before becoming a CTO or CEO/Braintrust of a new start up.

One thing I will say about doing all of this with a normal job is as follows: its very difficult. Time is always prioritized towards learning, programming, and expanding. Time is becoming more and more valuable every day. As a result, my dating life has remained relatively low key, as has my time for vacations. All of this has taken tolls on me in various ways. In order to combat burnout, I have kept working out, being social and dating if time permits. However, some days are tougher than others especially when work was 8 hours, and all my evening consists of is 5 more hours of more difficult work until I go to bed!

I hope that some people view this as inspiration and decide to take the jump if its been on their mind. The process so far has been very educational. If someone were to acquire the aforementioned skills from the onset of this thread, it is likely they could land a 70k+ job in software! One of my friends with less experience and fewer projects just landed an 80,000$/yr job doing back end SQL and php work. He loves it.

To those doing something similar, stick with it. Keep fighting the good fight. Thanks for reading.

edit: Interesting to see how things have kept getting pushed to the right. Part of this was by design ( to learn new skills, publish posts, build a portfolio/website). Part of this was due to the fact I am heavily invested in energy which has taken a beating along with the value of my holdings. Naturally, this has pushed my financial benchmarks to looking towards July as a switch. I swear that a prototype will be done by June! haha

 

[synergy1]

Things seem to be progressing pretty well, while minimizing burnout. I am learning Django pretty well and am able to serve dynamic content pretty well. It seemed counter-productive to utilize a front end framework vis Angular 1.3 as Django is technically a full stack framework which handles URLs much in the way that Angular does. My project is able to produce data from my DB, and am able to post information. My user system is complete as well as it has regular authentication built in and facebook/google login functionality. the html/css is looking good, and jQuery is adding some coolness to the mix. Deployment to AWS/Pythonanywhere etc should be doable by june/july.

My skillet should be sufficient to apply for dev job. I applied to a few, and have had some people reach out based on my github and angel list account. Whats amazing is how much one learns just by plugigng away at the problems. I am hoping I can snag a mid level dev job at a lower pricetag than a more experienced dev. Word on the street is companies can not find enough developers.

After a very rough draft of my project, I plan on either programming some algo trading systems for fun, or learning android development. Perhaps I can freelance and develop simple financial software solutions to people who want them. Pythons extensive libraries and Django's quick implementation make prototyping painless process.

 

[synergy1]

It is amazing how things can progress when one sticks with them. After a long sticking point of not knowing this for that, things are starting to click - exponentially. When I once found tutorials or blogs overwealming and confusing, I now find them trite and lacking detail. I am finding my problems are more unique and less solvable ( if solved at all) by the general public. This must be what it feels like to come close to mastery , which after nearly 2 years seems to be happening. By putting in this work, people are noticing and I am getting interviews for some higher paying jobs than what I am earning today. Heck, I didn't even go to school for some of this stuff!

As for the business end, I pivoted and put my idea on hold after building a crude simple prototype. The idea has merit, but I didn't see a "point" to it once I started using it! Instead, I am potentially taking an interest (some ownership) in a friends start up and working on that. It'll be doing work in php which is similar to Python's Django, but easier. While I don't plan on abandoning my idea, I feel that developing it in the php frameworks would probably work better ( its simpler thats for sure), and would continue to bolster experience. For my original idea, I am not too worried about "rushing" it to market since the idea is incomplete and I probably need a cofounder to really get a worthwhile product out there. And with the added experience, the development time will likely shrink dramatically ( from months to weeks).

My next project will be a fun one. I plan on building a proprietary stock trading platform. I have learned so much about investing, as well as the markets ( futures, commodities etc) that I think I can develop a competitive advantage and build a system which combines the power of programming ( rapid vast screening and analysis) with the insight of value investing ( investing in strong enterprises). No this isn't "program trading", nor is it bottom fishing - it will be using research, and proven indicators to get into good stocks. The advantage I'll have is the ability to quickly and efficiently screen these things every day, and perform the actual research ( earnings transcripts, 10-k analysis, market analysis). To the best of my knowledge, no one has anything even close to what I will design and if they do, its under lock and key. This will be a fun project to dig into.

To anyone who has read this whole thing and followed along since the beginning my advise is this - stick with it through the annoying times. When things start clicking, and they will, opportunities start to pop up. Fortune *seems* to favor the prepared. Don't ever quit. Work harder than the next guy. Everyone wants an easy way out, and such things only exist for trust fund kids.

 

[synergy1]

Hey

I just read your latest update and it reminded me of my own experience . I was more or less in the same situation (programming an app toolkit though) and also had those feelings of burnout afterw working 1/2 year with little to no fun in between.

What's most importantly: how many beta testers / potential clients do you have?
If I were to set up my start up again, I'd start from the customer site (ie: pitch your product to potential customers => get them interested to comment on pitch => first mock up => new customer reactions => get reactions => and only then start actually programming)

I figured this thread needs an update as it has been a while and so much has changed since the start. At the beginning, the goal was to build some idea I had in order to learn the skills needed to make an actual software start up, and maybe work on a real idea. Outside of academics, I had no real professional experience in development and figured there is no better way than I simply start building things.

Along the way, I pretty much abandoned two of the ideas I had. The first idea was the original topic of this thread , while still seeming like a fun idea, never got off the ground. I learned a bit about front end and backend development but realized I put the cart before the horse. The second idea was built, but I didn't like it. Yup, I built something that I wouldn't even use.

That takes us to where I ( we really) are today. In august, I was approached with an business/ecommerce idea that resonated with me. Rather than build the Minimum software product first, me and my business partner has put together the hypothesis we wish to test and the basic elements of our business plan. We also sourced white label manufacturers and began getting our product in front of end users. The premise is simple - we found a niche market we understand well and are offering a membership based service involving selling a product for one half to one third the price of normal retail prices on a product that wears out quickly. We already have prototypes in prospective customer's hands and the response is very positive. In fact, someone offered to buy one, even though it wasn't for sale. their offer price was twice our proposed price point which will give us a gross margin initially of 30-40%. But to respond to the quote above - this will be our exact roadmap to build the business.

Was the previous work really a 'waste of time'? The answer is most certainly not. Having built elements of software systems in practice work, I was able to quickly build a full web application pretty much from scratch. I elected to use python/Django with a sql back end, and host on Amazon Web Services. Rather than use a Content management like wordpress, I build the ecommerce part using a customization open source framework named Oscar. By using Oscar, I learned much more about Django and development than could be learned from classes, books, or tutorials. This has proven to be invaluable, and I recommend anyone with intermediate experience to do this. A quicker solution would have been to build a ecommerce platform using Magento or WP, but given our somewhat extended timeline and desired customization for products, I felt developing it on my own was a smarter move.

Because our timeline is still about a year out ( the other business partner needs to finish college), I successfully got a new job in software largely due to the skills attained from this process. While I am sure some people did it quicker, at the ripe age of 36, I was able to switch my field. The job is something I wanted because it would be nice to learn how a company in this space works. The company I will work for owns the lions share of its niche market so the learning will make up for the cut in pay I receive. They generate a lot of free cash flow on a yearly basis, and everyone who has worked there has a tenure of 10-15+ years easily.

Going forward - Much has been done but still more needs to be completed. Just an overview - site functionality, functional and unit testing, logging, Web Security, payment gateways, order fulfillment , debugging, user experience, and product customization to name a few. Once these are in place, we will have something we can show investors along with our business plan ( which is really our customer development roadmap). We will be approaching this from a viewpoint of finding and learning from early customers in order to tune the product offering. Will the price points work? How will users respond to online purchase of our product? Warrantees? Sales channel? Customer awareness? How effective will we be? Every problem solved results in 3 more questions to ask.

I plan on working in the software space for a little while in order to build new skills and learn the industry. If this takes off, than working for someone might not be the most ideal thing. We also plan on going past simply selling product, and will be delving into analytics in the space, which is a untapped market at present. We will have the intellectual firepower since the other co founder is getting his PHD in this space. I'll be sure to post the link to the site once its starting to look presentable!

Advice to others - Simply having a good "idea" and wishing for it aren't enough. If you think the idea is good, and dont plan it, odds are you'll hit a snag and the idea won't take off. Without putting in the time, you won't learn the skills needed to get past the idea stage. Having persistence to get through the bad times is necessary, but don't forget to get away from the computer and get out there. We have two ears and one mouth for a reason, so listening to potential clients is key. For those looking to get into software, just make something and have an open mind to (1) switch/pivot if need be and (2) keep ****ing up until it starts to make sense. I know someone who can pick up technologies like reactJS in a weekend , but don't beat yourself up too much if they don't make sense from the start. Learn the basics, build something, and see how others have built things. All the screw ups and nuisances of a language are infinity more important for learning than a cute video that prints "hello world" to a web browser.

Skills that helped land the software gig:

Front end - html/css/javascript.
Frameworks - Angular, ReactJS, Laravel, Django.
Languages - Python (Interview question), php, JS.
Key Concepts - DRY, Object Oriented programming, MVC (interview question) and general design patterns.
System admin - linux (Centos, Ubuntu), bash scripts.
Dev Ops - AWS EC2, RDS hosting.
Specific skills- Data analysis, web scraping, time series analysis (Interview Question), documentation/writing, machine learning, predictive algorithms (Interview question).
Testing - functional/ unit test concepts ( interview question).
Projects Built - Securities Database, predictive time series analysis (was offered a job on this one), web scrapping (didn't get this job), two web applications for investing, and my ongoing ecommerce platform.

Its a lot of work. Some might be able to get somewhere doing less. Others might have the capacity to do more with less time. Either way, I didn't post it to brag, but to give people a real world example of what its taken so far to 'make it happen'. My hopes are that someone in a similar situation can read this an understand the level of effort needed in one instance for some degree of success.

 

[synergy1]

The investing idea never got off the ground for a few reasons:

(1) I didn't like the offering compared to what was out there.

(2) People in this space do their own research. It is non trivial to figure out what value oriented investors like in companies.

(3) People who look at investments want to read about it, not spend a lot of time typing stuff.

(4) on sites like gurufocus where people can post about companies, they never end up doing so.

(5) there are already great ways to collect information out there like evernote. No one wants to share their hard earned research with others. Seeking alpha, valueinvestor club already own the small market that does.

On the bright side, once 2017 rolls on and I update my database, i'll have 5-6 years of financial data on companies. Its hard to get more than 4 years without paying for a subscription. See...good things can come from failure

 

[Stephen89]

Congratulations synergy1 for getting the software job. This thread has been very inspiring and helpful for people trying to get into programming, developer roles like myself.

Thanks a lot for sharing.

 

[logicallefty]

@synergy1 Congrats! Programming is tough. Most folks underestimate how much work it is to program anything useful. Yeah they have tools now that make it easier so you don't have to write raw code, but still... The 'hot' languages change too much and to code something really useful takes hours and hours. Like you said before, 300 hours for your initial site. I am pretty good with Perl but case in point, its not used too much anymore.. At one time it was 'hot' for web stuff. My tech background is in data security, computer forensics, and local & wide area networks. Networking is my least favorite of those three skillsets but it at least doesn't change as rapidly as other technical areas. People just always need more bandwidth capacity all the time but the basics are pretty much the same as they were 20 years ago, for the most part. I hope everything works out for you.

 

[synergy1]

Glad to hear that this gig isn't easy. It took me longer than several of my peers, and the job I got out the gate is less than what they started at. But I am in, and for the time being I am getting what experience I can and working on my own things outside of work. I think I covered it in my last post ( too lazy to read), but my business eCommerce platform is coming along nicely. It looks good, it can accept credit card payments, and I can deploy it to amazon with a few clicks and command line code. Its safe to say I am a competent developer even though my professional job title doesn't say so.

The plan is to have two activities (1) software consulting and (2) the eCommerce business. The first one, I'll help people get their solutions to the web ( preferably eCommerce since thats what I am good at right now). The eCommerce is simply a tool for us to generate cash flow before seeking investors to raise money for our real business idea which is at least 1 year out. We have incorporated and all of that good stuff.

For fun, I plan on developing an investing framework consisting of programming ( for data/ machine learning) and regular due diligence. I'll probably program in a combination of python and C - C can do option pricing, and python has some slick econometrics libraries - it'll be a good skill to get under my belt if I want to free lance/consult for quant jobs. (Once I took my current job, I was emailed a code test for a quant job offering over 180 annually for remote work - its worth continuing to look at.)

Thanks again for reading. Glad you all enjoyed! Have a great month

 

[AAAgent]

Once upon a time ago, I posted on AAAgent's similar thread that the best idea is to teach yourself if you can't get anyone to do it. This is exactly what I will be doing. I already have programming experience, and it comes naturally.

Finally found something that i could teach myself and have started profiting from it. Digital market/social media marketing. I've been selling digital advertising for very large agencies winning clients similar to Enterprise rent a car and Pandora. Then I started doing it locally for smaller businesses for another company, then I started selling it to local companies for my own business and when my partner bailed on me who was supposed to setup and run the campaigns, i manned up and figured it out. 3rd month and i''ll be making $500+ this month. Still working full time but it's good side money.

I've stopped going after the million dollar ideas. They are just too risky, returns are not immediate, and require too many cogs in the chain all spinning the exact way you need them to to make it work. I'd rather start something small, make a little money, learn how to be an expert in the field, learn to be a boss and manager, learn to sell better (im in sales but i do alot of additional work for free that my clients just gift me money for because they feel bad), and learn to grow the business better. I'm a firm believer in working towards success and a million dollar idea just doesn't start with no experience. I'm no means successful and this is my 3rd month and i'm super stressed out managing marketing spends for 10 clients, coordinating with my web guy, meeting with all my clients and bs-ing with them, and working my full time job. Feels like i could collapse and go crazy any minute.

Keep up the good work, Synergy! Small steps, move forward, never give up, and success will be closer than you think!

 

[synergy1]

I think I have come to a similar conclusion as you. Now I am not adverse to swinging for the big idea, but the reality is that big ideas are really just a compilation of a dozen small ideas or efforts put into a specific area. For example the business idea that I am working on now involves data and tracking athletes ( it hasn't been done in the space we are going to do), but the reality is to get there has taken a lot of incremental efforts. Parts of the puzzle include learning business itself, learning the programming side ( machine learning, python programming, web development) - thus an ideal way to get into the space is to freelance or get a job in the space to learn it well. I've been contacted for simple things like updating a site, wrangling data and those things ( haven't made money yet as a disclosure)

Most folks who start high tech companies either (1) have someone with that knowledge, or (2) have the knowledge themselves. In both cases, the expertise got there over a period of time and they have touched a series of projects to help them get there. That sounds like what you are doing, which is really friggan smart.

Good luck to you too. Keep me up to date with how things are going.

 

[AAAgent]

I think I have come to a similar conclusion as you. Now I am not adverse to swinging for the big idea, but the reality is that big ideas are really just a compilation of a dozen small ideas or efforts put into a specific area.

This exactly. I've learned to breakdown big ideas into many small ideas. Makes things easier to manage when you realize how much really needs to be done. If you have a partner or a vendor, etc. Factor in laziness, lateness, in there and it almost always looks like failure unless you have the money to pay for things to get done. I'm learning how to motivate people to work for less and that is very important in my opinion.

Aim small, miss small. Aim big, miss big. When you keep aiming small and hit more than you miss, and eventually start to increase your shot difficulty based off your experience, that's when you have something. My plan is to keep doing my thing, growing slow and steady and train my *partners to do everything without me and I just collect monthly recurring revenue. I'm collecting monthly recurring revenue at the moment but i'm working well under the minimum wage. Since I maintain all the relationships with the clients and collect all the money, I have all the power in this relationship. Money comes to me, and I pay them from my pocket.