“I am a smart person who wants to avoid having a job, and would rather do some cool stuff instead. Searching for more team members. At this moment we have no results, no experience, and no expertise, but we already have a web page and a few very superficial ideas about how to change the world. Here is a system to send me money, similar to Kickstarter/Patreon, but without all the competition.”
Seeing examples of your work didn’t make a good impression. Is this a representative example of how far you got?
Solution is simply, - put the money to the right places, on the things that people are passionate about. However, due to the social stratification, this easy fix seems only possible with the more conscientious upper class.
This is either naivity or scam. I am going to suppose that you are extremely naive (because in the other case there would be no point debating with you). I would say the problem #1 is that you are focusing on the parts that you are able to do—making a web page, inventing a “Need / Goal / Idea / Plan / Step / Task / Work” classification, designing a system of how to share money—completely ignoring the real work that needs to be done. How do you expect to accomplish anything with that?
Maybe you hope that someone else will join the team who will do all the hard work and have all the experience. The problem is, such person wouldn’t need you at all: they could simply give $100 to someone in India to make them a webpage in Ruby on Rails, and invent their own terminology during an afternoon. Also, such person would already have contacts from their previous work (where they got the experience).
I think what you should do, if you want to achieve anything, is trying to become such a person. This will take a few years. Before trying to organize your own team, become a member of an already existing team, because there is so much to learn.
You want to do the most “meta” work, because (a) you don’t want to get your hands dirty, (b) the “meta” work is high-status, a signal of high intelligence you have, and (c) you are actually not very good at doing anything else. The problem is, you are also not very good at this “meta” work… and it is definitely not the place where you should start. Knowledge progresses from specific to abstract, not the other way round.
I’m not saying you must now get a 9-5 job and come back here 20 years later when you have an impressively sounding job title and an expensive car. Just… do something that is useful, or start by learning something useful. Something not “meta”. There is Kickstarter, Patreon, you can put advertisement into your YouTube videos. You could work for an existing NGO. Focus on doing something useful, not only on how to make money while having no specific skill—there is too much competition in that already, and you don’t seem to have a competitive advantage there either.
The thing is, this is how you will be perceived when you come to the table like this… This is how everyone who comes in with an idea, very little work, and no credentials will be perceived… That’s really the takeaway you should have from Villiams post. Not “He’s wrong about me” but “I’m coming across wrong” or possibly “I’m going to prove him wrong”
I see, [MattG]. True, and I know why the perceptions. Anyway, we have team members who did projects comparable in size and functionality with booking.com, and are very experienced in Python/Django development, toptal.com level. The [Villiam]’s estimate of $100 is laughable.
This is how I read your proposal:
“I am a smart person who wants to avoid having a job, and would rather do some cool stuff instead. Searching for more team members. At this moment we have no results, no experience, and no expertise, but we already have a web page and a few very superficial ideas about how to change the world. Here is a system to send me money, similar to Kickstarter/Patreon, but without all the competition.”
Seeing examples of your work didn’t make a good impression. Is this a representative example of how far you got?
This is either naivity or scam. I am going to suppose that you are extremely naive (because in the other case there would be no point debating with you). I would say the problem #1 is that you are focusing on the parts that you are able to do—making a web page, inventing a “Need / Goal / Idea / Plan / Step / Task / Work” classification, designing a system of how to share money—completely ignoring the real work that needs to be done. How do you expect to accomplish anything with that?
Maybe you hope that someone else will join the team who will do all the hard work and have all the experience. The problem is, such person wouldn’t need you at all: they could simply give $100 to someone in India to make them a webpage in Ruby on Rails, and invent their own terminology during an afternoon. Also, such person would already have contacts from their previous work (where they got the experience).
I think what you should do, if you want to achieve anything, is trying to become such a person. This will take a few years. Before trying to organize your own team, become a member of an already existing team, because there is so much to learn.
You want to do the most “meta” work, because (a) you don’t want to get your hands dirty, (b) the “meta” work is high-status, a signal of high intelligence you have, and (c) you are actually not very good at doing anything else. The problem is, you are also not very good at this “meta” work… and it is definitely not the place where you should start. Knowledge progresses from specific to abstract, not the other way round.
I’m not saying you must now get a 9-5 job and come back here 20 years later when you have an impressively sounding job title and an expensive car. Just… do something that is useful, or start by learning something useful. Something not “meta”. There is Kickstarter, Patreon, you can put advertisement into your YouTube videos. You could work for an existing NGO. Focus on doing something useful, not only on how to make money while having no specific skill—there is too much competition in that already, and you don’t seem to have a competitive advantage there either.
[Viliam], thanks for feedback. I’ve no time to refute half or so of your statements, which are stated without having proper information—just guesses.
The thing is, this is how you will be perceived when you come to the table like this… This is how everyone who comes in with an idea, very little work, and no credentials will be perceived… That’s really the takeaway you should have from Villiams post. Not “He’s wrong about me” but “I’m coming across wrong” or possibly “I’m going to prove him wrong”
I see, [MattG]. True, and I know why the perceptions. Anyway, we have team members who did projects comparable in size and functionality with booking.com, and are very experienced in Python/Django development, toptal.com level. The [Villiam]’s estimate of $100 is laughable.