this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2025
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Programming

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Hi,

I'm a programmer with a bunch of years in IT and currently I'm trying to build my own project that can bring me enough revenue so I can leave my full-time job and focus on my projects only and eventually start my own business.

The main struggle right now is that I have too little time to work on my projects (around 3 hours per week) and I estimate it will take me at least 2 more years to start earning anything (not talking about real money so I can leave my full time job). I don't want to create any sort of scam just to grab some cash, but building a real complex software is a time consuming process, not speaking about that I must handle other stuff than programming (which I enjoy but this means I have even more work to do).

I'm wondering if anybody can give me any advice how to speed up that process or where I can get money to be able to focus on my ideas full time? Or maybe somebody tried to do the same and failed and can share what lessons they learned from their mistakes?

I'm looking for a real solutions, so please cut out generic advices like "just keep working" or "just find an angel investor". I understand that starting your own business is hard and requires to take a risk, but I'm looking for practical advices and not advices based on luck or having a huge start capital.

Thanks

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[–] frisbird@lemmy.ml 13 points 3 hours ago

Literally the only thing that matters is sales. Sales people make money regardless of whether the product is good or sometimes regardless of it even exists.

Programmers think the game is to make something good. It's not. It's telling people to pay you.

Spend all of your time talking to people about what problems they have and then ask them which problems cost them money or whether they would spend money to solve a problem.

Most of the time, if you tell people your idea, they will lie to you about the idea being good, but they will never spend money on it. So don't try to find the idea that people like. Find the problem that costs people money.

And that's how you make a business