What can I do to succeed?

[Satheesh]

I'm from India in my early 30s, working at a big MNC.
Since my early twenties I have been working in this big MNC. I have earned decently and that has helped my family a lot. I have no regrets for the energy and time that I spent all those days earning my pay. After 3 years of my job I started to think about my goal that was always to earn money (meaning hell lot of money). I wanted to be a millionaire, so I started to create stuff that I loved a lot - GAMES. I would work 9 hours a day at office and come back home at 10 PM. From 10 to 12/1AM I would learn and code. This went on for few months and I eventually released my game.
I was naive and may be an ignorant fool who never knew a thing about marketing, I tried to reach to people/audience via FB and some social networking ways back then, but to no use. After a year or so and few more games I realized that this is not working. Games were not of utmost quality and there were almost no installs. The next 1.5 years I spent my energy on creating an App for my college, after working hours and hours on it, I took the app and a presentation to my College head, and like before it didn't turn out to be fruitful. I tried reaching out to them multiple times but to no use.
Post this I was having mental fatigue so finally I took a break of few months to clear my head. During this phase one of my mutual friends living in New York reached out to me to create an app that would show people the Subway route from point A to B. But that was already offered by City mapper, the catch was that we wanted to create an app that would work offline. This time I had help so I finished the app quickly and marketing was taken up by my friend. Although they spent some good money and time it just didn't get enough installs and we had to drop the app and the idea. Since the day I first started on creating games, it had already been 5 years and I was no where.
I still had the job that was feeding me and my family, and so i continued trying stuff and eventually thought of starting a food truck as a side hustle. Between me and my friend we worked out the budget and bought a van, hired a chef and got things needed. That is when COVID struck and we stopped even before we started, we waited and waited for the lockdowns to end. But the lockdowns kept on getting longer and longer, also the willingness of people to try and buy outside food. We after a year of waiting had to sell all the items we bought.
During this time like many folks in my country we were exposed to stock market, so I learnt python and went on to write tens of thousands of lines of code as part of back testing. 95% of strategies just didn't work out, the ones that worked out weren't much profitable. I kept fighting for almost 3 years where I managed to make money but not at the pace where it would make a difference.
Its 2023 end now, I still have the job.
I have read books, tried so many things and yet I'm nowhere. In terms of earning money for myself and shifting to fast lane, I'm still 0. After 10 years of countless hours of working still no where near what I want.
This is first time I'm writing on a public forum of my experience and in a way asking for help and direction. Not sure if this would show me some direction, but even if not I have to continue and keep trying. My sentences might not show the effort that I put in these things that i did. But each of the stuff mentioned above took me months and years to build, prepare, develop and finish. I not pessimistic to think that earning money for a middle class guy is not possible, I just think that I'm missing something in terms of my approach or my effort. Hope this helps someone(and me as well), although this experience is not a success story rather its a failure story that seeks to succeed one day.

 

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[VZM]

Im really a bit of a nobody, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I think you missed one big thing. Youre trying to fix a swiss watch with a sledgehammer. You go all out coding putting in the effort without actually determining whether anyone needs your app. No matter how much you code, it isn't going to help if no one needs your app. I'd first try to find an app concept that enough people have a confirmed NEED for (not just someones friend said something). After you have one that you have confirmed many people will buy, then start coding. You don't need to pour more effort in, you need to funnel it in the right direction. For example, with your college app, IMHO you should have done the presentation first and the app last. I'm also learning right now, and trying to adopt a fail fast approach, to quickly dump ideas that don't work. For your subway app, go to the subway and ask random people. What will it cost you? 2 bucks and a couple of hours time. If youre not near the NY subway, then have your friend go prove the idea is so good.
Just my 2 c.

 

[Satheesh]

Im really a bit of a nobody, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I think you missed one big thing. Youre trying to fix a swiss watch with a sledgehammer. You go all out coding putting in the effort without actually determining whether anyone needs your app. No matter how much you code, it isn't going to help if no one needs your app. I'd first try to find an app concept that enough people have a confirmed NEED for (not just someones friend said something). After you have one that you have confirmed many people will buy, then start coding. You don't need to pour more effort in, you need to funnel it in the right direction. For example, with your college app, IMHO you should have done the presentation first and the app last. I'm also learning right now, and trying to adopt a fail fast approach, to quickly dump ideas that don't work. For your subway app, go to the subway and ask random people. What will it cost you? 2 bucks and a couple of hours time. If youre not near the NY subway, then have your friend go prove the idea is so good.
Just my 2 c.

Just to clarify. We had done research on both the aspects of college app and New York subway app. In first case the college management stopped it although students had interest in this. In Subway app we had got few installs but we were outgunned in lots of departments by fellow competitors. I'm not defending myself but I understand what you have said. I should had done better research before giving my efforts and I certainly echo your suggestion of approach college management as first step rather than it being the last step.
Thank you for your valuable feedback.

 

[KushShah9492]

Hey mate.

I've been there as well, building something that nobody needs.

If I were you, the first thing I'd do is find a network of people, a problem to solve and then focus meticulously in solving that problem.

Whether its coding, design or whatever.

Another thing you need is a ton of patience. Sometimes, things might go in favor, most of the time it won't. You just have to accept that and keep moving.

Hope this helps.

 

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[Satheesh]

Hey mate.

I've been there as well, building something that nobody needs.

If I were you, the first thing I'd do is find a network of people, a problem to solve and then focus meticulously in solving that problem.

Whether its coding, design or whatever.

Another thing you need is a ton of patience. Sometimes, things might go in favor, most of the time it won't. You just have to accept that and keep moving.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the suggestion.
This is one of the aspects where I have faced a lot problem. Majority of the people I have partnered with either do not show the same interest as me or are simply waiting for me to take initiative.