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Comment by thrownaway954 | Hacker News Reader

"In the first place, nobody "works for themself". You might work for customers, or clients, or whatever, but not "yourself"."

nail on the head... so many people don't get this simple fact that if you DO NOT have clients, you DO NOT have a business. You can't ever "pay yourself", some outside entity have to pay you for your product.

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Not true!

If you're doing b2b, yes admittedly you work for clients, yet a client is still very different from a boss (he can't order you around or give you "performance evaluations", etc.)

BUT if you're doing b2c and selling something to many anonymous customers you don't interact with, you're truly working for yourself; that thing can be a piece of software, an object, a novel, etc.

The customers still dictate your work. If you don't build the features they want, you won't have a business. Essentially you're still working for them.

Yes, sure, you're working for them; but it's still better (IMHO) to have clients than bosses. A boss is someone that uses you to look good to his own boss, but doesn't really care about what you do. A client, most of the time, actually needs what you produce.

Have you ever dealt with clients? I'm gonna take a wild guess and say no.

I've been an independent consultant / contractor for over 20 years. I don't esp. defend clients, they don't know what they want and tend to change their mind often, but they're a million times better than a bad boss. (A good boss, I don't know, I never had one.)

In the last 14 months I switched to making physical products sold to end users (b2c) and it's great, but having clients wasn't that bad.

That doesn't describe any boss I've ever had.

You can't fire a boss, but you can fire a customer.

You also can't fire investors. Remember that before you go "work for yourself" and take seed money to do it.

I know people who have quit full time jobs to write algo trading software for themselves to use -- the market pays them but I wouldn't call it a customer.

Interesting you went here. I've thought for a long time that trading your own money in the markets is the closest (urban) thing to leaving the cave in the morning, killing your food and dragging it back. The thought is appealing to me on so many levels.

that's not a business... that's investing.

More like speculation. Algo trading usually exploits short-term inefficiencies on the market, not long term valuation opportunities.

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