I have felt identifying your target customer quickly is the most important step in transitioning from developer to business. Target customer definition should be as narrow as possible and you should be able to list them (like atleast a hundred of them in a spread sheet with contact information). This helps you to talk to them, validate the problem, get feedback to your solution and sell it to them.
Long time HN reader but never been a contributor (never felt smart enough to contribute). When I was growing up the best job that I have thought possible was to be a Typist (My parents has told me to learn typing). So, when I ended up in US through graduate school, I have thought I made it. But, again, I was pretty clue less after the school was complete. I have thought I should follow money (even though I was passionate about AI and did my graduate school in it) and joined e-commerce consulting firm in 2000. got laid off twice and ended up for a small company where I thought I was doing AI stuff. Slacked off for 9 years.. ended up making about 100K when I quit (worked myself through management: engineer -> Director of engineering). then, I have joined a development manager at a public company and has been working there for 3 1/2 for about 150K salary (40K stock every year). I thought I will be doing searching and machine learning. But, I have gotten deceived again(my team was cut in half)I have tried making side projects.. picked complex ones like image searching. but, couldn't sell it. I have thought may be I should something my own (I am 37 now.. leaving in a rural US town with 2 kids). So, I have resigned my job (from largest enterprise software company in world) and trying out entrepreneurship.. want to build great AI application. Even though, I can survive at least 3 years, I am going to try this out for 6 months. If it doesn't work, I am going to back to work.
as lot of people have said.. u cannot beat google at search. but, there is a way.. push information that users are looking for before they even think about it (similar to Google NOW). search is still a sophisticated operation for regular users. by showing the right information at the right time, users don't even have to search.
Yes. I am really embarrassed about them. I started about 4-8 side projects. I have 0% success rate. My embarrassment comes in two forms: i) disappointing other people who are "part" of the team ii) self-disappointment that I cannot finish the full project myself. i) typically results in avoiding them for life. Don't get me wrong. In my corporate world, I am more successful.
