A key thing most developers wanting the become entrepreneurs miss (I certainly did) is that more often then not coding something is the slowest and/or most expensive way to solve someone’s problem. Many, many business ideas could probably just be a Wordpress site with a small plugin which you can farm off to Upwork for a pittance that doesn’t make for a very good “Show HN”.
But that's not fun to build. And I suspect this is where the dichotomy comes in. Engineers want to have something that's fun to build while also making money, which can be the problem.
As an engineer, what is fun about it? From your statement it would be "something fun to build." I wonder why building a business and building a piece of software are so different, and why one is fun while the other is not.
Fun about what exactly? If you mean farming to Upwork, not building is not fun for engineers. Building a business can be, but again, only if the product itself is fun to build. Who wants to work in a business where the core product is boring? I mean boring as in the fundamental product, not the industries, such as healthcare, construction, and so on, basically all but consumer tech.
> Fun about what exactly? If you mean farming to Upwork, not building is not fun for engineers.
Nope. Never said anything about "not building." Only you have stated that.
This circles back to my original question/statement; "I wonder why building a business and building a piece of software are so different"
> Building a business can be [fun]
Absolutely! Remove the words "a business" and restate that as:
"Building can be [fun]"
Now you can insert almost anything...
"Building a bike can be fun"
"Building a business can be fun"
"Building a product can be fun"
"Building software can be fun"
"Building a computer can be fun"
...
...
...
> Who wants to work in a business where the core product is boring
Remove the words "wants to" in that sentence and you could apply that statement to most of the Software Engineers who work for others. SE's typically work around this limitation by justifying it with the technology they are working on instead.
"I'm learning React!"
"I get to use Ruby on Rails everyday!"
"I get to learn more about using all the AWS services!"
...
...
...
None of that matters.
The only thing that matters is "building." Building is fun!
Why can't building a business be just as fun as building software? ...and we're right back to my original question :-)
Because business is mostly about sales and marketing and not so much about the product. Exceptions occur, of course, but generally a better marketed product is more successful than a better built product.
Engineers don't like sales and marketing generally. That's why they're engineers. And unlike as you state, building in general is not necessarily fun, only specific things being built are fun, those that align with the interests of the builder. If you told me to build a house, I wouldn't necessarily consider that fun, so your initial premise is flawed. A business in this case also falls into the "not fun" category, again, in general to engineers.
> Because business is mostly about sales and marketing and not so much about the product.
That's not been my direct experience.
Actually, very much the opposite for myself and many others I know who are software engineers building their own businesses.
> And unlike as you state, building in general is not necessarily fun
No. I said building in general IS fun. That's my premise ;-)
> If you told me to build a house, I wouldn't necessarily consider that fun, so your initial premise is flawed.
No, that's for you as an individual. Not everyone. Yes, there are many people who find building a house fun. Those statements of mine, they were examples. The point is being missed. Engineers like to build.
There is no flawed premise, only an individual looking for flaws.
> A business in this case also falls into the "not fun" category, again, in general to engineers
Again, that's not been my direct experience nor the experience of other Software Engineers that I know who are building businesses.
Most likely you think it's not fun for you. That doesn't mean it's not fun in general, to engineers. Maybe you've chatted about this, anecdotally, with other Software Engineers, maybe you've read some online threads and it's formed a cognitive bias. That's very typical. I can clearly see it in these very generic statements.
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There is whole world out there for people who like to build (e.g. software engineers) and they can do it on their own terms, by better understanding what it is about building they like. Not what they "think" they like, but what actually drives them. That's harder to figure out. The biggest hurdle that I've experienced / seen is not the thousand and one reasons for why software engineers would hate building a business, but rather the biggest hurdle is their own cognitive bias towards it (force fed via generic, and widely accepted statements such as "business is mostly about sales and marketing and not so much about the product").
I'm sure you'll snap back with why I'm wrong. Maybe even sprinkle in some snark. Making sure to get the last word in. Please indulge yourself.
It's now time for me to get back to having fun building my business as a software engineer :-)
What was your actual point in this conversation? I took it as, "building is fun":
> No. I said building in general IS fun. That's my premise ;-)
Then I disagreed with that saying that building in itself is not necessarily fun, only building certain things is fun for certain people, which you seem to take issue with. I posed a counterfactual statement to your general rule, which means that your general rule cannot be true, as in propositional logic.
> Again, that's not been my direct experience nor the experience of other Software Engineers that I know who are building businesses.
> Most likely you think it's not fun for you. That doesn't mean it's not fun in general, to engineers. Maybe you've chatted about this, anecdotally, with other Software Engineers, maybe you've read some online threads and it's formed a cognitive bias. That's very typical. I can clearly see it in these very generic statements.
I said that in general, regardless of one's anecdotal experience, engineers tend towards building technology rather than business aspects like sales and marketing. Much as you disagree with me on anecdotal evidence, I also disagree with you. Whatever, seems to be a disagreement on principles, we can't convince each other.
But, regardless of our disagreements, please don't make statements like these:
> I'm sure you'll snap back with why I'm wrong. Maybe even sprinkle in some snark. Making sure to get the last word in. Please indulge yourself.
> It's now time for me to get back to having fun building my business as a software engineer :-)
When you engage in discourse, you are not above criticism or disagreement. Don't act holier than thou when someone disagrees with you. It harms the nature of argumentation, especially on fora like HN where it's expected more than other fora.
I believe this is very common with web devs as well who argue all day over wordpress vs static site vs whatever. What works best? Usually the solution that is quick and web dev for small brochure sites is more a marketing skill than a technical one.
Honest question, is this worth it? I've noticed the same thing. Most requirements are simple, and can be done via upwork freelancer etc. What you can provide is extra customer service or maintenance. But that seems like a race to the bottom.
Whenever I come across these, it's in the territory of not worth my free time. But for the more complex projects they want a whole team, and I've found it's difficult as a solo person to sale that.
