Comment by TamDenholm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by TamDenholm | Hacker News Reader

I felt like that a few years ago. I didnt end up leaving my career, what i did instead was use my skills in a different way. Instead of being a web developer, i became a business consultant. Like you i didnt care about the latest fashion in the space and in general my interest was no longer in programming, however, 60%-80% of my time today is still writing code, but i'm much happier.

What i do now is i work with non-technical businesses as my clients, they come to me with a problem, not a spec. I gather requirements, give them my opinions, tell them how to solve their problems, then deliver solution for it, which 90% of the time is an internal web app.

For instance, a current client is a distillery that was using 2 pieces of shitty software, one of which they originally got in the early 2000's. The software was running their health and safety requirements for the staff. I wrote an internal web app that replaced a old creaky system that didnt work very well and they're absolutely flabbergasted that this problem could even be solved at all. Its an extremely easy problem to solve, but to them, i'm basically doing magic.

They dont care what i code it in, they dont care if i'm up to date on the latest framework, they dont care how i deliver it as long as i solve their problem and save them money, which is what i focus on. This is infinitely more interesting to me than keeping up to date on the latest tech. Also, as a side note, i'm now earning about 3 times as much as i used to earn as a contract web developer.

Perhaps you could apply your skills in a different manner.

Can you speak to how you initially made the move and got clients, and how you get them now?

My question exactly. I would think there are millions of opportunities like this out there, but my gut feel is that any company that has any sort of a budget for a project would already have some sort of an IT department who would very carefully protect their "environment" (read: jobs) from any sort of an external entity who would introduce efficiency.

This may seem like a conspiracy theory to some, but it is extremely consistent with my observations from over 20 years in the industry. I see inefficiency and incompetence everywhere I look, I simply cannot believe this is mostly accidental, there must be forces acting to keep things this way.

Something about attribution, malice and stupidity...

You call it inefficiency and incompetence, I call it chaos. And where there's chaos, there's money to be made.

Yes, this is true but it depends how you approach the problem.

There are a lot of medium to large retail companies looking to front the cash for startups willing to "move fast and break things". The catch is that they will disown you when you break something.

Ok since in less than an hour i've had a few comments and 1 email asking about this, i'll reply here.

So the headlines are: Be as boring as possible, Networking, Focusing on the outcome, rather than the product and start studying business instead of tech.

Be as boring as possible

Tech to tech guy is sexy, i avoid the sexy, because thats where all the other techys are, you know where they're not, boring businesses. When i say boring i dont actually mean they're boring, i find them interesting, they're just not considered fashionable and sexy and the "in-thing". If you go through life like i do, as a customer wondering why a difficult process isnt made easier using technology, then you already know what you can go after. I rent cars quite often, car rental companies have to take my details EVERY SINGLE TIME! Why dont they have a system that looks up my info for next time? The local chamber of commerce runs free business workshops, you can even register online, however after the workshop, they give you the slides on paper, ask you to fill out a feedback form on paper and that paper asks for your email address if you want to hear more? Why isnt the first part married with the second part? My local council that does my refuse collection required me to phone them, get a paper form posted to me, i had to fill it out, post it back, then pay over the phone, then i had to go to the local office to collect my trade waste bags? SERIOUSLY???

There are SO MANY boring problems out there that can be made better, its all LOW HANGING FRUIT, why? Because most of the tech world is making a salt dispensing centerpiece for the dining table that has an app for your iphone to pick how many pinches of salt you need, oh and bluetooth! https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/smalt-the-world-s-first-i...

Networking

Go to your local networking meetups, don't go to any tech ones. Go to ones for Oil and Gas, Construction, Local Government, Textiles, Motor vehicles, etc. Find and talk to people there, be helpful, give away your knowledge for free. Establish yourself an an authority on making business processes better. Join your local chamber and volunteer your time to grow their membership, this will not only benefit them, you can develop some software to make the process easier, they get to use it for free and you get exposed to their membership, also, you can sell this software to other chambers in the area. (We're doing exactly this.)

Focus on outcome, rather than the product

Your business client does care about code quality, or test coverage, or continuous integration, or git branching methodology. Just write the damn app and make it look pretty. Write it well and secure, but dont spend time on shit that wont ever be appreciated by anyone but you. Deliver it, show them you just saved them £XXX,XXX per year now they use your software and they'll love you forever.

Study business, not tech

Read business books, read Patio11's blog, especially the one about not calling yourself a programmer, realise that what you are delivering is value, not exchanging your time for money. Charge accordingly, I recently charged £16,000 for about 5 days of work from my junior developer and about 3 days of work from me, why? Because it was for Kodak and the tool allowed their salespeople to make more sales by displaying pretty graphs for their clients. The value to them was easily 6 figures a year. This was through a middleman, and i know he charged a lot more than i did.

Sorry for the wall of text, i could talk for hours on the subject.

Sorry for the wall of text, i could talk for hours on the subject.

We are all sitting on the edge of our seats, waiting for you to launch your blog.

Trouble is I can never write proactively, only retroactively to stuff like this on HN or Reddit.

I have probably two dozen blogs and initially wrestled with the same thing. If you want to blog, I would be happy to help you find a process that works for you.

I am sure you could find an audience. You sound like a rich source of much-needed wisdom on the subject of small business of a sort that would be highly relevant to lots of people on HN.

Edit: It is also fine to interpret my first remark to mean "No apologies needed re the length. Lots of people here would be happy to read more." I mean, you aren't obligated to start a blog because a random internet stranger flippantly suggested it, but I have the bad habit of taking objections literally when people really mean "I don't actually want to do that" but they don't actually say that, they say "I would, but (reason)" and then I'm all "That's totally solvable!" because I am compulsively helpful.

I shall stop digging my grave deeper now. kaythxbai

You can copy and maybe extend your texts from HN and Reddit and post them to your blog.

Any chance you could move this conversation over to https://www.indiehackers.com/ and maybe do an interview with the folks over there? You sound...like someone I'd like to hear a lot more from.

I doubt i'm a candidate for indie hackers, i dont have a product, i offer a service. But i'm happy to answer questions.

You'd still make for a great interview.

>Go to your local networking meetups, don't go to any tech ones. Go to ones for Oil and Gas, Construction, Local Government, Textiles, Motor vehicles, etc.

Do you have any advice on how to find these meetups? Is meetup.com good enough or is there a better resource such as something at city hall?

Meetup.com works ok, but chamber of commerce i find is better because its generally better suited to businesses. Best thing though is to find trade events, whether its conferences or networking events, product launches, whatever. Pick an industry, lets say, car salesmen. Google for Car salesman trade forums, boom, loads of communities there, generally they have events pages, awards shows, etc, create a calendar and start going. Took hardly any time at all. Apply to any industry.

I chuckled at the bit about a bluetooth connected salt-shaker because I thought it was a joke, after watching the video part of me still really wants to believe it's some sort of weird joke.

Thank you for the elaboration in your comment above, very useful in my journey as software focused consultant!

How did you find that example gig? Like , would one just walk into every distillery they can find and ask the cashier / manager about their software they are using ?

Honestly its about networking and i dont mean going to going to events and just handing out business cards. Its about what you do every day. I got the Kodak client from someone i already knew from a previous job. I got the Distillery client from someone that found me via my website. I got another client because they were a family member of one of my existing clients, another one i got because we both bought something from an auction site and negotiated with them to split the cost of delivery, got to talking about them and they ended up hiring us.

Clients come from all over. Do things, tell people works well. Whats a problem that affects you that you could easily solve, your local activity group terrible at organising a date? Setup an email list and doodle for organising dates. Then write a blog post saying what you did and how it improved things, then mention that to everyone you know, submit it on HN, Reddit, email it to other local groups, etc.

Did you mean to say you're earning 3 times as much?

Yes, granted its 3 times as much revenue and not 3 times profit, as i have employees and an office etc now, but yes, i'm earning a lot more.

I'm thinking of doing exactly that switch. How did you get first customers?

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