| You have to stop thinking of yourself as a "skilled developer", for one, since development skill leads to success in software businesses like the ability to cook amazing waffles leads to successfully running a bed and breakfast. A few years ago I was part of a small company, and one day we had a meeting to discuss our future (and yes, porn was one of the things we discussed, though we ended up not pursuing it). The question we asked was, "What was the goal of the company?" If the answer was "To make money", then was writing code the proper way to do it? Each of us, being coders, had come to think so. I sometimes think that having a skill or a passion for some hands-on activity is a detriment because it leads you think you can and should be doing that as the path to success. The whole "do what you love and the money will follow" nonsense. OTOH, if you believe you have no tangible skill, but think you can recognize or anticipate a market, then you don't bother trying to implement the solution yourself; you go hire people. (Of course pulling that off is a skill in itself, but it's a different sort from the "make things with your hands" realm where coding lives.) From a business point of view it may make more sense to take a high-paying but soul-sucking Rails contract job and use the money to pay other developers to implement you MVP. (BTW, the book The E-Myth covers some of this.) |