Am I being and idiot and moving too slow?

[oneac]

I've been learning to code since November 2023. With my rate of learning I assume that I'll finish my programming learning in 2 more months.

The goal of me learning how to code is to make money through online SaaS businesses.

I don't have an idea of what business to start, but rather, my plan is to first learn how to code and then spend all of my time finding problems to solve.

I constantly doubt whether I should continue this plan or pick a business which will make money in a quicker way.

I have had success car flipping in the past and if I move back in with my parents I know I can continue that string of success.

I'm feeling beaten.

Though I'm hesitant to give up now. I really could use some help.

 

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[Jobless]

My thoughts:
1. Learning to code in 6 months is not slow. This teaches you the basics and you will continue learning.
2. How will you, as a beginner, compete in the software space, with experienced programmers and mass market AI coders?
3. Chasing money quickly with a trending method like SaaS, crypto, AI etc. is probably not the right long-term decision.
4. If you previously had success doing X, the probability is more in your favor when you do that, instead of new thing Y. The method is already proven, and your success and learning can compound.

 

[oneac]

Hey Darwin,
It's natural to feel frustrated when progress feels slow, but remember that building a successful business takes time and persistence. Rather than focusing on how fast you're moving, focus on the actions you're taking each day to move closer to your goals.
Consider breaking down your larger goals into smaller, actionable steps that you can tackle one at a time. This can help you stay motivated and make progress more manageable.
Additionally, don't be afraid to seek advice and guidance from others who have been in your shoes. Networking with fellow entrepreneurs and mentors can provide valuable insights and support as you navigate your entrepreneurial journey.
Stay focused, stay determined, and keep pushing forward. You've got this!

Are you a bot

 

[oneac]

My thoughts:
1. Learning to code in 6 months is not slow. This teaches you the basics and you will continue learning.
2. How will you, as a beginner, compete in the software space, with experienced programmers and mass market AI coders?
3. Chasing money quickly with a trending method like SaaS, crypto, AI etc. is probably not the right long-term decision.
4. If you previously had success doing X, the probability is more in your favor when you do that, instead of new thing Y. The method is already proven, and your success and learning can compound.

Thanks for your reply
1. Okay good point. It's just hard to feel that this time wasn't wasted because I haven't made any money yet. Looking at it like that though puts it into perspective, I am learning at a good pace. Most people in this program take about a year.
2. By picking a niche problem and community and becoming the best at that niche, while it true that there are experienced programmers and AI coders out there, there are more business opportunities than competitors in the online software world
3. I agree about chasing quick cash may not be the best long-term decision. However I see software as a long term play not a short term one
4. That is true. The thought to abandon ship has crossed through my mind, but car flipping isn't scalable and it isn't a long term play either

 

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[Inventor001]

Some questions to think about:

1. What is your plan after two months when the program is over?
2. How much do you need to learn to make money through online SaaS business?
3. When will you stop learning to code and find problems to solve?
4. What if you find a problem or business idea to work on and then learn the skills required?
5. Since you are young, Why not get a formal education? Is it because of a lack of self-discipline?
6. Can car flipping help you to fund a business and look for more problems to solve?

 

[ZCP]

@Darwin Diaz how many online saas businesses have you made offers to buy in the last two weeks?
start there. use it as an exercise to see the possibilities and potentially uncover and opportunity.

and start your saas business today. quit the bullshit. get a customer and get started.
you don't need to know how to code to start / run / buy a business. get rolling.

what are the first three things you need to do to be running a saas business?

 

[Kevin88660]

I don't have an idea of what business to start, but rather, my plan is to first learn how to code and then spend all of my time finding problems to solve.

I constantly doubt whether I should continue this plan or pick a business which will make money in a quicker way.

By your own admission you had no better idea, so why worry about possibly missing out something better?

 

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[circleme]

I've been learning to code since November 2023. With my rate of learning I assume that I'll finish my programming learning in 2 more months.

That will most likely not be the case. I don't want to sound like a jerk, but a few months ago, I was in your shoes. I had to relearn modern JS and some frameworks, generally a new tech stack to develop the software I had in mind. So, I started learning. One day passed, then another. One week was over, then another. One month into learning, then another. I felt like I still needed to learn this and that and that I'm definitely not ready yet. I told myself that I needed at least X more months in order to create the MVP.

Last year, I had a conversation with my brother about my progress, and he didn't understand why I wasn't already building and still learning. I tried to explain to him that in order to build a rocket, you first need to learn/study everything around it. He disagreed. He told me that I should just start, and I had 1,000 excuses. But he was right, and I tried to just start building.

My assumption was: Originally, I thought that I would need at least 6 more months (of learning) until I'm ready, then building the software another 2-3 months.

The reality was: I finished the product (still an MVP but a mature one with quite some features) within 8 weeks. I had 1,000 questions and got lost a lot during the building phase, but I learned by solving one problem at a time. Did I feel overwhelmed? Yeah, a lot of times. Did it make fun? Not at all, except when I finally solved problem X, then problem Y, etc. So, you are improving your skillset significantly more if you start just building instead of waiting another X months until you are ready. You will never be ready, and even more important:

There are huge opportunity costs. Namely, engaging the market. Building is just one thing in SaaS. At this stage, I would argue that it is most likely the easiest one, even though I didn't think that while starting my product. Things like iterating the product based on customer/user feedback, getting users in the first stage, choosing the right pricing model, customer support, etc. Those are all the things that you don't "learn" because you are still stuck with learning to program. Which brings me to your second statement and my conclusion:

I don't have an idea of what business to start, but rather, my plan is to first learn how to code and then spend all of my time finding problems to solve.

I would reverse this. Instead of learning then building > Build and learn along the way. Start with an idea in the first place. I'm not sure if it was you or someone else, but I think you have built a prototype for aggregating Chrome Web Store stats for Chrome extension developers. Ask yourself: Did you learn more during the building phase or during learning some "freecodecamp" lesson about solving the Fibonacci order for the 200,000,000th time?

Please don't take that as an offense or anything like that. I was just like you a few months ago. And regarding your "money problems," I can guarantee you that you will earn $0 if you keep learning, but you might earn at least something (if it isn't money, then it is at least a lot of experience) while engaging the market. You basically increase your probabilities:

• Learning route income potential: 0%
• Building and launching an actual app that solves a real problem income potential: >= 0%

 

[srodrigo]

I constantly doubt whether I should continue this plan or pick a business which will make money in a quicker way.

Sounds like you are chasing money. I've been there. "I want to build this business, but this other one is going to make money quicker, yay!". 5 years later, I've tried a bunch of things and made exactly $0.

I'm going to go against some sacred cows here, but I think the question you should ask is: what is it that you like and can make money? I'm not coming up with this question out of my a$$; Alex Hormozi, Alex Becker, Steve Jobs, Robert Greene, and many others did. Look at Musk or Jobs; they didn't ask themselves "what's going to make me money quicker?", but "how can I create great things that I genuinely care about and that people will love?". Money was just a byproduct of their purpose.

EDIT: Tweet by Hormozi about what I highlighted above:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1712899802843824288

View: https://twitter.com/AlexHormozi/status/1712899802843824288


Also, learning how to code takes a lifetime; take it easy.

 

[Bounce Back]

Also, learning how to code takes a lifetime; take it easy.

Agreed and it never ends. Now in days with millions of tutorials and so many hand-holding libraries out there to use it gives the illusion that coding is easy because you spun up a create-react-app ui following a 1 hour tutorial.

What isn't shown is the countless things it actually takes to go from that to real app and not mention real app done in ways that isn't going to bite you if you actually end up needing to scale or have any real sense of security, etc....

Point isn't to scare its to confirm yeah software ain't easy - if you are not really doing it from an interest in software engineering I'd recommend these days to use some no-code solution until your idea is proven then hustle hard to find an actual quality shop to make the real thing with the money the no-code solution pulls in if you reach a brick wall in it not being able to do what you need or the costs of that platform warrants it.

Truth be told looking back all these years if those no-code platforms existed when I was a kid toying with coding I would've used them and not gone down the path I did. Which would have cost me a lot of missed $$$ in salary but I think would've allowed my entrepreneurial side to flex faster/quicker and not be hijacked from the need to always learn something more in coding.

 

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[Tau Ceti]

That will most likely not be the case. I don't want to sound like a jerk, but a few months ago, I was in your shoes. I had to relearn modern JS and some frameworks, generally a new tech stack to develop the software I had in mind. So, I started learning. One day passed, then another. One week was over, then another. One month into learning, then another. I felt like I still needed to learn this and that and that I'm definitely not ready yet. I told myself that I needed at least X more months in order to create the MVP.

Last year, I had a conversation with my brother about my progress, and he didn't understand why I wasn't already building and still learning. I tried to explain to him that in order to build a rocket, you first need to learn/study everything around it. He disagreed. He told me that I should just start, and I had 1,000 excuses. But he was right, and I tried to just start building.

My assumption was: Originally, I thought that I would need at least 6 more months (of learning) until I'm ready, then building the software another 2-3 months.

The reality was: I finished the product (still an MVP but a mature one with quite some features) within 8 weeks. I had 1,000 questions and got lost a lot during the building phase, but I learned by solving one problem at a time. Did I feel overwhelmed? Yeah, a lot of times. Did it make fun? Not at all, except when I finally solved problem X, then problem Y, etc. So, you are improving your skillset significantly more if you start just building instead of waiting another X months until you are ready. You will never be ready, and even more important:

There are huge opportunity costs. Namely, engaging the market. Building is just one thing in SaaS. At this stage, I would argue that it is most likely the easiest one, even though I didn't think that while starting my product. Things like iterating the product based on customer/user feedback, getting users in the first stage, choosing the right pricing model, customer support, etc. Those are all the things that you don't "learn" because you are still stuck with learning to program. Which brings me to your second statement and my conclusion:


I would reverse this. Instead of learning then building > Build and learn along the way. Start with an idea in the first place. I'm not sure if it was you or someone else, but I think you have built a prototype for aggregating Chrome Web Store stats for Chrome extension developers. Ask yourself: Did you learn more during the building phase or during learning some "freecodecamp" lesson about solving the Fibonacci order for the 200,000,000th time?

Please don't take that as an offense or anything like that. I was just like you a few months ago. And regarding your "money problems," I can guarantee you that you will earn $0 if you keep learning, but you might earn at least something (if it isn't money, then it is at least a lot of experience) while engaging the market. You basically increase your probabilities:

• Learning route income potential: 0%
• Building and launching an actual app that solves a real problem income potential: >= 0%

I completely agree with @circleme here.

The best way to learn something is to do something and to fix problems as they come. Even in the best case scenario, when you follow tutorials step by steps, you will find issues. In this case you have to fix these problems as you go along.

It's like laying on the tracks in front of a train that is already moving.
That's the best way to learn in my opinion.

There is no point wondering, do I know enough? or can I even do this?

Just get started, then when you hit a roadblock, fix the problem, then get on to the next thing.
If you wait to be ready to start something, then you ll never be ready because there is no ready state.

You either get started or you don't there is no in-between.

Before I started working on my business, I knew nothing about Chrome extensions or building a good Saas. i started, stumbled, learned, failed, then had problems (related to tech or otherwise), failed again, kept going.

Each and every day, I find myself googling things, reading things, fixing things.

 

[srodrigo]

if you are not really doing it from an interest in software engineering I'd recommend these days to use some no-code solution until your idea is proven then hustle hard to find an actual quality shop to make the real thing with the money the no-code solution pulls in if you reach a brick wall in it not being able to do what you need or the costs of that platform warrants it.

I agree with this. I see so many people getting into coding because it's hot. Heck, I love coding and some times I feel like changing careers because not everything is exactly fun. I can't imagine how someone who has no interest would feel a couple of years in. I see so many people switching careers from whatever to software development with no interest other than money. Now we know why the market has been flooded with mediocre developers. Even good ones are struggling to get a job right now. I imagine the cash-grab ones from the "get a Graduate $200k job today!" will be back to their previous industries.

I'm not into no-code, so I can't recommend. My feeling is that these tools are very limited for anything that doesn't fit in their predefined features. I can't imagine building what I'm building right now with no-code, as the backend is not trivial and the devil is in the details. But maybe no-code a good starting point for OP to validate the idea and pitch to investors if hiring a development shop is expensive.

OP, I reiterate

I constantly doubt whether I should continue this plan or pick a business which will make money in a quicker way.

This is a recipe for wasting your time. Pick something you care about and has a proven viability. Otherwise, it's not going to stick.

Have a look at this <1 minute videos:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joKFL3846Fs

Linas Beliūnas on LinkedIn: This advice from Steve Jobs is a must-listen for every founder &… | 80 comments

This advice from Steve Jobs is a must-listen for every founder & entrepreneur: "People who start a company because they want to make lots of money… I haven’t… | 80 comments on LinkedIn

www.linkedin.com

 

[Black_Dragon43]

I've been learning to code since November 2023. With my rate of learning I assume that I'll finish my programming learning in 2 more months.

The goal of me learning how to code is to make money through online SaaS businesses.

I don't have an idea of what business to start, but rather, my plan is to first learn how to code and then spend all of my time finding problems to solve.

I constantly doubt whether I should continue this plan or pick a business which will make money in a quicker way.

I have had success car flipping in the past and if I move back in with my parents I know I can continue that string of success.

I'm feeling beaten.

Though I'm hesitant to give up now. I really could use some help.

Yes, you're slow as a snail and should be ashamed of the 0 progress you've made. You know it deep inside too, and you're hoping to now use other people to repress your real feelings, and run away from the truth for a bit more.

You don't need to learn to code bro. WTF?! And months?! Learn to code in 1 month. People who tell you that you need more are lazy retards. Lazy retards don't succeed in entrepreneurship. They go back to being brokies because "F*ck, this shit is too hard man!!! I don't have a life anymore bla bla bla" tears.

Start finding a problem to solve already. Then learn to solve it. Currently you're just jacking off. ChatGPT will tell you how to code whatever solution you need. First find your problem. Find your client. Ideally get some money. Then build your solution.

 

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