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- Ask HN - Should I be more entrepreneurial?
- 3 years ago, I started a one-man company building electronic hardware for artists. I did everything myself: electronics, software, manufacturing, marketing, music, screencasts. The only thing lacking was any business sense whatsoever: I quickly burnt out after 2 years, realizing that I just worked 90 hour weeks making 10$ an hour.
- Rethinking my priorities, I figured out that I actually had already reached my “4 goals in life” (to use new-agey self-help blog-terms): make art, make technology, having friends and family, enjoying life. I also realized what I don’t know how to do: managing people, understanding people, being business-savvy enough to make money. I have done the crazy stuff I wanted to do, and at age 29 feel like I’m actually retiring, doing stuff that is just like watering my plants.
- Since me slowly shutting my electronics venture down, I’ve been quite happily freelancing halftime without trying very hard (doing electronics and software and selling a bit of my art), making about 60k-80k per year, and pursuing my other projects on the side. I don’t miss the excitement of having a company, and am usually happy doing one-man projects.
- I know I’m completely underselling myself when I am freelancing (I work for 50$/h at the moment, although I had gigs for 100 EUR / hour this year as well), which I understand as me not actually caring. However, I think I miss the possibility of being able to pay a smart developer to develop a compiler backend for me, the possibility to have a design agency design some custom cases. Business-like endeavors that are more driven by a love for art and technology than market, which I learnt is a recipe bound for failure. I do think some of my ideas are quite
- I know that I’m quite sharp and pick up things easily, as well as having a laser-like focus, intensity and self-discipline to push those through, as long as I don’t get bored, which is as soon as I feel like I’m not learning anything anymore. Would you recommend me to:
- a) Chill out, relax, and enjoy what I have
- b) Look for someone to manage me, keeping 80% off my 20% but allowing me to have a bit of a bigger scope
- c) Manning up, study business, finance and marketing (can’t be that much more complicated than CS, digital electronics, analog electronics and jazz, can it?), and make some serious $$$ for a few years
- d) Slowly ramp up my revenue, getting more consulting gigs rather than codemonkey gigs, getting a suit and upselling myself
- e) Slowly building up a few “moneyprinting” endeavours (a few iphone apps, a few webapps), either slowly building up a revenue stream or actually turning into something that someone would like to take over or nurture to $$$
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