inSenCite
Joined 4 years ago
Joined 4 years ago
If there is uptake the plan is to build out a toolset to help with managing a portfolio of arbs.
I've been able to 'release' some simple tools into the public with plotly/django, but having to also then figure out things like gunicorn, dbms, vps hosting etc. is quite time consuming.
My biggest issue is that a lot of these frameworks seem to add complexity (under the guise of simplicity) as opposed to making things simpler. They just become more things to manage. Maybe I'm missing something and someone can point me in the right direction.
There are lots of pros on here who will find things like this trivial, but for someone like me (independent with limited professional dev training) the time investment is high as is the cost of "switching" between what seem to be mutually exclusive tasks (web dev/ops, and local analytics work).
Maybe spend the time finding a market with a problem that is lucrative enough to then spend time solving. And then figure out how to validate the problem...and then find a solution that you can get to market in a week or two (if not sooner).
This stuff isn't rocket science its just fucking hard work.
A good "cowboy" is one that gets the job done but can also build a sustainable, changeable process in their wake.
A good "drone" is able to spot ineffective parts of the system/process and change it.
As an aside, I really dislike the cowboy and drone nomenclature.
Coding is easy, testing and maintaining is hard.
Flyers should be 100% banned - just so much waste.
How many times have you encountered a piece of software that is utter garbage from a ui/ux/engg. perspective but gets used ALL THE TIME? plenty of b2b examples of this including back ends of banks. They are awful, but they work. The business solves a very real customer problem and the tech is just a supporting (although still critical) act. As long as the problem gets solved, the tech. does not really matter. There is obviously more nuance to this vis a vis software maintenance etc. but when starting up, the tech should matter to you less than finding a valid problem.
But I think they are highlighting an important thing here that most of us struggle with...building is fun, progress is discrete and clear, the feedback loop is very tight. Selling and marketing to people sucks, its clunky, the feedback loops are variable, and if you're inclined more to being an introvert it is very exhausting.
I'm not sure the author is conditioned to fail as much as they are just more inclined to build.
Filing this under things we don't see very often (or at least since RIM went underwater).
One of the mind blowing things about this is the sheer amount of people some of the Gurdwaras end up feeding (1000s) and how non-trivial the whole process is from kitchen to serving. All volunteers generally.
But then it just got boring AND exhausting. The leadership became uninspired and replaced by the classic sleazy sales persona, the work became mundane, and the constant 4-6month cycle of new clients began to overlap as I went higher up and managed more projects/focused more on sales.
I haven't figured out what I'm gonna do next, frankly the networking burned me out so much I am very averse to it. And ironically I became quite good at it (at least relative to where I started).
I'm booking my first intro chat with someone next week, and already my stomach is turning thinking about scheduling it. I thought I was ready but maybe not...at the same time, life ain't free.
They built an intimate knowledge of their customer and their industry, built strong connections with the top brass of their client by delivering exceptional work that got those people promoted, and were really good at building autonomous teams that could get the (exceptional) work done with their guidance on the customer/industry/client. These folks would also often deliver very difficult messages to their clients, which often resulted in more business not less.
The sleazy sales people can build decent pipelines/sales numbers but they are not what I would ever label as 'elite'.