Productivity and Self-improvement by Gutata

Based on the average number of hours spent watching television, shopping, and surfing the web, it is probably safe to say that consumers outnumber producers. It is much easier to be a consumer. There’s nothing easier than being idle and watching the world go by. Try your best to be a producer and make something. It is harder in the beginning but much more rewarding in the end.

If you don’t want to quit your day job or can’t because you need cash flow, you can still start a web company by doing it on the side. You might think of your day as two workdays: 8 hours for your day job and 8 hours for your business. That may seem like a lot of hours, but hey, no one said it’d be easy!

You don’t have to work 8 hours on your side business. 37Signals built their first product, Basecamp, by working on it 10 hours a week. 37Signals programmer David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of the sexy Ruby on Rails framework, was attending school at the time, had client work, and 10 hours was all he could devote to the side project. The popular bookmarking site, del.icio.us, was built by Joshua Schachter while working at Morgan Stanley. After slowly improving it for 5.5 years (since 2000), it has hundreds of thousands of users and was recently acquired by Yahoo!. The first thing that Jeff Barr, head of Amazon Web Services, does in the morning and the last thing he does before going to bed is work on his side project.

This suggests that you can build your first product by making small improvements everyday. As 37Signals says, with less time, you’ll use your time more wisely. Also, if you work on your product everyday, it’s much easier to keep yourself motivated. So if you’re working on the next big thing, wake up a little earlier and do a little bit at a time.

If you want to learn python, read these books in this order:

1. Learning Python
   Easy to read and well-organized for beginners to mid-level experience.
2. Python in a Nutshell
   Very detailed explanation of python, and perhaps the more detailed than you’d like to know unless you’re curious about the inner workings of python. Consequently, more difficult to read than Learning Python.

Use these as references:

1. Python Tutorial
   Comes with python. Easy to navigate. Similar to the JDK API documentation.
   
2. Python Cookbook
   A nice set of implementations for common tasks. You can see additional “recipes” at ActiveState Programmer Network (ASPN).

Based on the evolution of game companies, in only a few years, I don’t think it will be possible to start small web businesses. Games became mainstream sometime in the late 70s with the explosion of Atari. In the early to mid 90s, a plethora of unique games such as SimCity (simulation), Dune (real-time strategy), Myst (puzzle-based adventure), and Doom (first person shooter) were released. Many of them were developed by small, fledgling studios - SimCity by Maxis, Doom by id Software, Myst by Cyan Worlds, and Dune by Westwood Studios - or even individuals, as in the case of Duke Nukem by Ken Silverman. In only a few years, by the late 90s, games had to be extremely polished or cutting edge to be successful and could not be easily produced with teams of one to three people. This was quickened by the rapid evolution of 3D graphics hardware and the growing number of networked computers.

Web development became mainstream around the mid 90s, as e-commerce (e.g. Amazon.com) started to generate revenue, Netscape became the standard browser, and MP3s and email were gaining popularity. Assuming that the web industry is on a similar pace to the gaming industry, we can expect web applications to be very polished and difficult to produce by individuals or small teams by 2015. Games are probably more complex than web applications due to their many disciplines. So the actual date is probably around 2010. We’re already starting to see complex applications (e.g. Google Maps, Writely, Remember the Milk) that were normally produced as desktop applications.

This analysis is quite informal, but what it tells you is that if you haven’t broken into the web industry, it’s now or never. As web technologies evolve, you fall further and further behind the curve. It takes an above-average software engineer, who knows little to nothing about the web and web business, probably three months to release an application that can compete with the current cutting-edge applications. That learning curve is rapidly increasing. Some even say that now is not a good time to start a web business. But as usual, I’m with 37signals. I think now is a great time to start a web business, but this may be your last chance.

As a web business, you’re not too different from any other business. You need cash and you need to make more cash. How much cash do you need? Probably at least enough until you have your first product. Here is some basic analysis and advice from Ryan Carson.

The problem with your first product is that it takes time to make money. And cash flow is a dire need when first starting. Listen to Jason Fried or read more from Ryan Carson. You need more cash if you’re going to stay afloat. Nothing brings a sense of reality faster than an empty bank account when you have mortgages, bills, and other debt/liabilities to pay. So you’ll probably want to do things on the side, like free lance consulting, as your product begins to grow a customer base. You may consider outside funding such as venture capital or angel investors. But you might think twice after reading two articles from 37Signals: Entrepreneurs and VC Squeeze.

Focusing on things that bring in more cash will extend your business’ longevity. The real question is, “Will my product make money?” Currently, there are two popular models for web applications:

1. Charge for your service.
2. Sell ads, sign up for affiliate programs, and ask for donations.

Charging for your service might seem scary in an age when so many useful services are free such as search engines, news sites, and email. According to 37Signals, this is the easiest way to earn cash. Their thinking is that as long as you provide something of value, your users are willing to pay. If you don’t charge for your service, you have to rely on lots of Internet traffic. This takes time, and probably too much time. Either way, you have to provide something of value. Why not start getting money right away by charging for your service? On the other hand, in 12 months, blogger Steve Pavlina has been succesful by not charging. Decide which one works for you. As a web business, in just a few months, you’ll know if you have something valuable.

I’m not one with much entrepreneurial experience, so I’ll try to summarize what others (such as Paul Graham and 37 Signals) say you need to do to start your own web business.

First, you need an idea. Any idea works, although some are better than others. Start with something that you enjoy. Something you love working on. If you do this, you’ll want to work on it everyday. As long as you make incremental improvements, you’ll slowly achieve your goal, even when you don’t think you’ll have enough time to work on it.

Next, stick with an idea that solves a personal problem, a problem that really irks you. If the problem is so personally troublesome, you’ll want to use your application yourself. Your application will become better with you as the end user.

Third, do something simple. As 37 Signals says, there’s enough complexity in the world and you probably don’t have the resources to tackle the harder problems. Work on the simpler problems where you can put something together that is really polished. Let the big boys (Microsoft, Google, etc.) work on the really tough problems and fail. Also, keeping your idea simple means less complexity, less software, fewer dependencies, and fewer resources. All of this allows you to fund yourself and change quickly when the need arises.

Finally, prototype quickly. You probably don’t have a sense of what works or what doesn’t (with respect to solving your idea). Try some things, make mistakes, and reiterate. That way, you quickly refine what your idea and solution will be. A number of companies don’t end up working on the original idea. One example is Microsoft, who planned to sell programming languages, not packaged software. Another is PayPal. The founders were interested in sending information securely, not performing financial transactions.