I've thought about this quite a bit and I think it's fair to say that knowledge of programming in entrepreneurship is a very valuable skill to have, especially if you are in the tech space. The barriers to entry are low these days with ready-to-go software available which any person can Google tutorials on set-up, modifications, etc for. You could reach a measure of success, but anyone can come along and identify what software, plugins, you are using and start cutting in your space. Also being able to outsource code requires at least some grasp of the basic structure in which you'd outline a custom software in. I personally had no clue how I could go about doing that, but after I learned a bit more about object oriented aspects and the relationship between databases I had a clearer idea. I don't see IM alone as capable of producing a consistent source of income and there are limits to how long one can keep hustling. Eventually if you have kids and a wife that depend on you, it would would become even harder. So I care to think knowledge of programming gives an edge, even at a basic level.
Why Is Everyone Jumping On The Programming Bandwagon
- Thread starter conjamuk
- Start date
I think you are right conjamuk that it is very difficult to go from "never programmed" to "the owner of a successful 7+ figure programming company/firm/app/SaaS" but I also think that absolute is right in that it is also now very difficult to be a 7+ figure affiliate because of the cutthroat competition.
In fact, drawing from basic Economics 101, it will always be very difficult to be extremely successful at anything. Affiliate marketing used to be a lot easier which caused a huge influx of competitors which then lowered everyone's profits. That continued until the industry reached an equilibrium where it is very difficult because of how crowded it is, which then causes less people to start joining the industry and more people to start leaving.
So in the short term for affiliate marketing there were tons of opportunities for easy profit because there weren't nearly as many competitors as there was money, but that quickly corrected itself, and for any truly "easy money" opportunity that correction will always happen - hence my original claim that in the long run any success will be very difficult. A lot of people are/were vaguely aware of this when they tried artificially to decrease competition (for instance in affiliate marketing there was a strict "no outting" policy on WF and many SEO services employed cartel like practices aimed at discouraging new entrants.) That might work for a period of time, but in the end, the pursuit of easy money always wins out and an "easy" industry will become crowded, and exactly how crowded it will become correlates directly with how easy it is.
In the long run the only "easy" sustained financial success will come from industries that explicitly prevent people from entering, which in turn makes succeeding in that industry very hard.
That is why I think programming is becoming much more popular on WF now - although that is hardly the only way to create a barrier to entry (people like mont and papajohn have done great jobs doing this in ways completely unrelated to software), programming is one that a lot of people on here are the most familiar with, even if it is only superficially.
In fact, drawing from basic Economics 101, it will always be very difficult to be extremely successful at anything. Affiliate marketing used to be a lot easier which caused a huge influx of competitors which then lowered everyone's profits. That continued until the industry reached an equilibrium where it is very difficult because of how crowded it is, which then causes less people to start joining the industry and more people to start leaving.
So in the short term for affiliate marketing there were tons of opportunities for easy profit because there weren't nearly as many competitors as there was money, but that quickly corrected itself, and for any truly "easy money" opportunity that correction will always happen - hence my original claim that in the long run any success will be very difficult. A lot of people are/were vaguely aware of this when they tried artificially to decrease competition (for instance in affiliate marketing there was a strict "no outting" policy on WF and many SEO services employed cartel like practices aimed at discouraging new entrants.) That might work for a period of time, but in the end, the pursuit of easy money always wins out and an "easy" industry will become crowded, and exactly how crowded it will become correlates directly with how easy it is.
In the long run the only "easy" sustained financial success will come from industries that explicitly prevent people from entering, which in turn makes succeeding in that industry very hard.
That is why I think programming is becoming much more popular on WF now - although that is hardly the only way to create a barrier to entry (people like mont and papajohn have done great jobs doing this in ways completely unrelated to software), programming is one that a lot of people on here are the most familiar with, even if it is only superficially.
Everyone said everything that I pretty much wanted to say.
I would like to add a point for anyone to refute though. The most dominant and or experts in the tech space (marketing, tech business, etc) are people with development/programming/computer science backgrounds. The only person I can think off the top of my head or when thinking about this before is Steve Jobs (who many guessed never learned to code and think he pretended he knew it).
Especially SEO which a lot of people here focus on. I think a lot of people here gravitated too because SEO is a big deal here and SEO can require a lot of technical skill. An SEO usually has to look at a site, say what to change, and give an estimate for how long to do it, then on top of that prioritize/estimate value from those site changes. Also linkbuilding, linkbuilding/automation go hand in hand.
I would like to add a point for anyone to refute though. The most dominant and or experts in the tech space (marketing, tech business, etc) are people with development/programming/computer science backgrounds. The only person I can think off the top of my head or when thinking about this before is Steve Jobs (who many guessed never learned to code and think he pretended he knew it).
Especially SEO which a lot of people here focus on. I think a lot of people here gravitated too because SEO is a big deal here and SEO can require a lot of technical skill. An SEO usually has to look at a site, say what to change, and give an estimate for how long to do it, then on top of that prioritize/estimate value from those site changes. Also linkbuilding, linkbuilding/automation go hand in hand.
Fuck it, I will be more daring. Coding/programming is the new literacy. Highschools across the globe are started to add computer science classes and it's becoming mandatory. When reading/watching anything about early America and how it had to adapt to the divide of literate/illiterate -- very similar to what's going on now.
This. If you're questioning the relevance of programming and your primary launchpad for business is the web, then you're a dinosaur.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU[/ame]
Sources: Magic Is Raising $12M From Sequoia At A $40M Valuation | TechCrunch
SV is in a big frothy bubble, handing money out left and right. There is more money than ideas.
Affiliate Marketers, late to the party, are going after the easy money before the bubble pops by creating apps/SaaS companies.
SV is in a big frothy bubble, handing money out left and right. There is more money than ideas.
Affiliate Marketers, late to the party, are going after the easy money before the bubble pops by creating apps/SaaS companies.
60% of apps never have been downloaded? So even creator and his friends/family did not downloaded it? Then now you can imagine what quality are those "apps" - with most of them being just websites made to apps and other auto generated crap.
If you cannot get 100 downloads without any marketing, then it means you are doing something really wrong.
I wanted something more "real world useful" to replace my gaming habits for the most part. I figured being a mediocre at best programmer and brushing up on my math skills would be decent skills to have. Picking up a lot of interesting thought processes as I go along too.
I'm not sure what I think about this being a very experienced programmer myself.
On first thought I'm like programmers are a dime a dozen and you can hire them so fast and easy now. It's super competitive and it really isn't as exclusive or special as it used to be. But these are the crap programmers who hack everything together and don't know how to fully polish or oversee a project to fruition. And unless you have that high end programmer that is more than just a coder then your projects don't end right. And you either need to be that yourself or pay good money for it.
So I think this should first be qualified on quality. And not quality in the bullshit sense of useless details or subjective crap. Quality in the sense of completing projects in a very scrutinized and scalable way. Quality in the sense that you have a very logical and well-thought out answer for why you did things a certain way and why you didn't do things another way. Most programmers can't do that. I think if you want to build a stable, real business you are going to need a quality tech guy and that doesn't have to be you, but if it's not you then you're going to have to pay well for it. You can't expect to get a solid programmer for the same pay that everyone else is paying. At least I never have. There's always exceptions but in general you get what you pay for. A quality programmer shouldn't just code. A quality programmer should know where to run with something without you having to tell them. They need to have a creative spark and an understanding of how they fit into the current tech landscape and which trends to start shifting towards and which old technology to shy away from. They need to be leaders, not just followers.
So in that sense I could see the value in learning it yourself. But obviously to have a solid business you need pieces outside of just the tech side of things. And are you as a person more fit to be the tech guy, the sales guy, the creative guy, the management guy, etc? It's hard to be everything and you only have so much time and resources in a day. If it makes sense for you to become that high level tech guy because that is what you're naturally geared towards then you should. But if you're not geared towards it do what you're geared towards and be sure to hire/partner with a high level tech guy. The low level guys can be used under the high level direction, but you have to have that high level IMO.
Obviously I'm a programmer so it's hard for me to see running a tech company not knowing what I know. But I really think if I was coming at it in this day and age without knowing anything about coding, and despite how much I love it, I still wouldn't do it. I love business even more and would stick to developing the business itself and hire/partner with a trusted high level guy to handle the tech side of things. My goal is always to remove myself from the business as much as possible so I think the sooner you can do that while maintaining the same quality in the business itself, or especially a higher quality in the business, the better.
On first thought I'm like programmers are a dime a dozen and you can hire them so fast and easy now. It's super competitive and it really isn't as exclusive or special as it used to be. But these are the crap programmers who hack everything together and don't know how to fully polish or oversee a project to fruition. And unless you have that high end programmer that is more than just a coder then your projects don't end right. And you either need to be that yourself or pay good money for it.
So I think this should first be qualified on quality. And not quality in the bullshit sense of useless details or subjective crap. Quality in the sense of completing projects in a very scrutinized and scalable way. Quality in the sense that you have a very logical and well-thought out answer for why you did things a certain way and why you didn't do things another way. Most programmers can't do that. I think if you want to build a stable, real business you are going to need a quality tech guy and that doesn't have to be you, but if it's not you then you're going to have to pay well for it. You can't expect to get a solid programmer for the same pay that everyone else is paying. At least I never have. There's always exceptions but in general you get what you pay for. A quality programmer shouldn't just code. A quality programmer should know where to run with something without you having to tell them. They need to have a creative spark and an understanding of how they fit into the current tech landscape and which trends to start shifting towards and which old technology to shy away from. They need to be leaders, not just followers.
So in that sense I could see the value in learning it yourself. But obviously to have a solid business you need pieces outside of just the tech side of things. And are you as a person more fit to be the tech guy, the sales guy, the creative guy, the management guy, etc? It's hard to be everything and you only have so much time and resources in a day. If it makes sense for you to become that high level tech guy because that is what you're naturally geared towards then you should. But if you're not geared towards it do what you're geared towards and be sure to hire/partner with a high level tech guy. The low level guys can be used under the high level direction, but you have to have that high level IMO.
Obviously I'm a programmer so it's hard for me to see running a tech company not knowing what I know. But I really think if I was coming at it in this day and age without knowing anything about coding, and despite how much I love it, I still wouldn't do it. I love business even more and would stick to developing the business itself and hire/partner with a trusted high level guy to handle the tech side of things. My goal is always to remove myself from the business as much as possible so I think the sooner you can do that while maintaining the same quality in the business itself, or especially a higher quality in the business, the better.
Sometimes I facepalm when I read this, and sometimes I break out a huge smile that this is the perceived wisdom that is being spread amongst much more talented developers than me.
Most apps don't get downloaded because there is 0 demand. Devs get their retarded idea and have tunnel vision until it's completed and don't bother asking if anyone actually wants the app. Usually these apps are beautifully designed with great functionality. Case in point was mgrunin's 'stolen phone alert' app or whatever. I knew straight away that was never going to make any money, it was a gimmick. Typical idea from someone who wasn't familiar with the apps market and what makes money.
Most people can't do maths past the most basic of levels. I deal with shithouse commercial programmers everyday and some just don't have the type of brain/personality to program. Sure, they might be able to 'read' code but ask them to solve a problem and they struggle. It's got nothing to do with intelligence just that some people aren't that great at that type of thinking.
