Comment by alabut | Hacker News Reader

Comment by alabut | Hacker News Reader

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There's an entire book about why you're right and the OP's approach is generally the wrong one, called So Good They Can't Ignore You. The OP is exhibiting the classic "passion mindset" - you search your soul for your passions and if you plumb deep enough, you'll magically unlock some cheat code in the world and people will start paying you.

The book is a light intro into the field of Self-Determination Theory and it's filled with examples of people following their passion for 6 months before flaming out because no one will pay them for the thing they like to do.

Another way to put it is that making money takes practice just like playing the piano does. You're probably not going to wake up one day and realize that an empty calendar is exactly what you need to learn how people will pay you for something that nobody told you to build.

http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1985-making-money-takes-pract...

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20110301/making-money-small-busi...

Sounds like a business school approach, and certainly valid. But to imagine its the only workable approach is silly. Everybody entrepreneur quits the job at some point to take the risk. This guy may (that's the important word) succeed at his own idea, or join someone else's project, or find a group of like-minded people and follow some idea to its conclusion. And sometimes this works.

In fact, there are so many examples of this working. Its a mindset: a person with non-entrepreneurial temperament can't imagine trying it, I get that. They go so far as to project their non-risk-taking onto others and claim they're making a mistake.

I think of it this way: entrepreneurs are swimming off the beach, splashing and surfing and diving and sailing small boats. A cruise ship comes by, people leaning over the rail and shouting "Get out of the water! You're getting all wet! You'll drown! The tide might go out! There may be sharks and stingy jellyfish!"

You can try to calm them, tell them "It's ok, I know how to swim, the water is not that bad, come on in with us!" But its pointless; they will stay on their cruise ship and shout and shake their heads. And that's ok.

"So Good They Can't Ignore You": http://www.amazon.com/Good-They-Cant-Ignore-You/dp/145550912...

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