I half-heartedly started down the path of researching and developing a couple of apps with this in the back of my mind. Rental property management software and janitorial service management sw was where I went. I had experience in both and areas and I knew that there's boatloads of money waiting to be made in just these two fields, but finally I realized it was boring beyond belief, so I lost interest.
And that was a big mistake! The mistake was in focusing on how exciting it was to write code for that domain but instead I should have focused on how great it would feel to help people in that industry with their problems. Approached that way it becomes, for me at least, much more interesting.
Going back to the article, I'm sure that many entrepreneurial devs would love to start a business in retail software if they deeply understood how much impact they would have on people's lives and livelihoods.
"- Look in obscure places- We're often fascinated with the shiny things in the internet industry. Many overlook the obscure and unsexy. Don't make that mistake. If your goal has primarily monetary motivations, look at the unsexy."
I agree. Writing an 'uncool' app that makes lots of people happy and is very profitable is preferable to writing a 'cool' app that no-one uses and makes no money (e.g. yet another Twitter client).
And that was a big mistake! The mistake was in focusing on how exciting it was to write code for that domain but instead I should have focused on how great it would feel to help people in that industry with their problems. Approached that way it becomes, for me at least, much more interesting.
Going back to the article, I'm sure that many entrepreneurial devs would love to start a business in retail software if they deeply understood how much impact they would have on people's lives and livelihoods.