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I am looking for some suggestions on how to decide what type of venture to begin. My main problem (as I perceive it), is that I am interested in too many things. I have self-studied a wide variety of topics, and love to continue learning more. This has caused me to spend lots of money learning things, but not really be able to profit from them. The irony is, I usually learn about a new subject with the intent to eventually earn money at it. When the novelty of a subject wears off, I go learn about something new. I am now 45, and have amassed a crap-ton of knowledge about different things.
When I was 20, I dropped out of college and got a job as a computer programmer. Over the years, I went from the "boy wonder", to being the guy without a degree. At my current company, and previous employers, I have always been shut out of upper-level or higher-paying jobs because I lacked a degree. Recently I have been planing to acquire certain skills that would allow me to be an independent consultant (such as C# and PHP), but that is going to take a while. When I am learning a new skill that will help me get a job from someone else, I will often think I should instead be focusing on creating my own business with the skills I already have.
Since reading TMF and several books listed in the TMF bookstore, I have been turned on to the idea of process over originality. Normally, I would only consider pursing my own original ideas (and I do have a few). Now, I am willing to pursue an existing idea, and compete on price, convenience, or quality. I think I read about that in the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. The TMF has different organizing principles, but I don't think they are mutually exclusive.
Technologically, I can do most things. I am new to web-frameworks, but I have a lot of experience in programming, systems integration, Linux/Unix, artificial-intelligence, databases, etc. There isn't anything that I couldn't figure out how to do, if I knew what I wanted to do.
Some of the things I have been interested in are:
- an iPhone video-manipulation app
- an iPhone audio-manipulation app
- an iPhone film-buff app
- a website for minimalists
- a website for RV owners
- a website for bartering
- a website related to Forex trading
- a website for analyzing films
- a website promoting Linux/Unix
- a website related to Norse mythology
- a website related to Eastern philosophies
At one point, I was using a piece of software called "Market Samurai", which is a tool for online marketers to discover what other people are looking for. That software opened my mind to the idea of trying to offer what other people were looking for, rather than what I found interesting to tinker on. I got a little turned off by the Market Samurai crowd, they seemed to be polluting the internet with half-baked landing pages. I would rather create a real website.
My initial choice is going to have to be whether I want to create an iPhone app or a Ruby-on-Rails website. The iPhone apps have built in monetization, but dealing with Apple seems like it can be a pain (and getting noticed in the App store). A RoR website could still be accessed by a mobile device, plus the multitude of websurfers, so I am leaning towards that. My employer also wants me to learn RoR, so that skill would be useful at my dayjob, too.
A sad fact is, I will work my tail off all day, at a 30% salary discount due to not having a degree, and when I get home, I'm too frazzled to figure out what to do for myself.
When I was 20, I dropped out of college and got a job as a computer programmer. Over the years, I went from the "boy wonder", to being the guy without a degree. At my current company, and previous employers, I have always been shut out of upper-level or higher-paying jobs because I lacked a degree. Recently I have been planing to acquire certain skills that would allow me to be an independent consultant (such as C# and PHP), but that is going to take a while. When I am learning a new skill that will help me get a job from someone else, I will often think I should instead be focusing on creating my own business with the skills I already have.
Since reading TMF and several books listed in the TMF bookstore, I have been turned on to the idea of process over originality. Normally, I would only consider pursing my own original ideas (and I do have a few). Now, I am willing to pursue an existing idea, and compete on price, convenience, or quality. I think I read about that in the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. The TMF has different organizing principles, but I don't think they are mutually exclusive.
Technologically, I can do most things. I am new to web-frameworks, but I have a lot of experience in programming, systems integration, Linux/Unix, artificial-intelligence, databases, etc. There isn't anything that I couldn't figure out how to do, if I knew what I wanted to do.
Some of the things I have been interested in are:
- an iPhone video-manipulation app
- an iPhone audio-manipulation app
- an iPhone film-buff app
- a website for minimalists
- a website for RV owners
- a website for bartering
- a website related to Forex trading
- a website for analyzing films
- a website promoting Linux/Unix
- a website related to Norse mythology
- a website related to Eastern philosophies
At one point, I was using a piece of software called "Market Samurai", which is a tool for online marketers to discover what other people are looking for. That software opened my mind to the idea of trying to offer what other people were looking for, rather than what I found interesting to tinker on. I got a little turned off by the Market Samurai crowd, they seemed to be polluting the internet with half-baked landing pages. I would rather create a real website.
My initial choice is going to have to be whether I want to create an iPhone app or a Ruby-on-Rails website. The iPhone apps have built in monetization, but dealing with Apple seems like it can be a pain (and getting noticed in the App store). A RoR website could still be accessed by a mobile device, plus the multitude of websurfers, so I am leaning towards that. My employer also wants me to learn RoR, so that skill would be useful at my dayjob, too.
A sad fact is, I will work my tail off all day, at a 30% salary discount due to not having a degree, and when I get home, I'm too frazzled to figure out what to do for myself.
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