I quit my job in August and move fully into freelance contract work
One pattern, I found in many of the HackerNews interviews with successful product companies is how often the founders transition to being self employed first via a independent contractor route, and then finding a problem to solve which can be made into a business. It seems to make sense that working together with various entrepreneurs, marketers, and various types of people which make it more likely to find a viable problem to solve. Do you guys agree with this?
I feel that working together with various projects really gets my brain working to come up with viable product ideas. Every so often my clients would ask me how to fix a problem and if there's a product I can recommend to solve problem X. I feel this is the best way to make something people actually want. Do any of you have a similar experience and manage to develop a successful business by following this route?
I am looking to start developing a product in middle of next year once I compile enough data.
One niche I am particularly interested in and I believe have a viable market is "value investing" education and tools for millennials. Getting into investing is something I struggle with myself and I think there is a lack of information in this space for 20 - 35 year olds. Investing is at a all time low as well compare to our parents generation. The tools are geared towards advance traders and the barrier to entry is sometimes too intimidating. I am not sure how to start with this though. Would building an audience by creating a weekly newsletter be the right path? And then building tools for this segment?
Cheers.
I think one lesser mentioned reason why it makes sense to transition to independent contracting first - is one of intellectual property. Unless raising investment, a lot of early founders still need to earn personal income to keep going.
However, employment contracts are extremely blanket and aggressive on ownership of IP in favour of the employer, indicating that any invention made at any time - including evenings and weekends, belongs to the maker's employer by default and not the maker.
It makes sense for the employer to do this because the employee is not expected to be setting up businesses whilst they're an employee, and not having a blanket term could end up getting all parties involved into a serious legal mess about who owns what (e.g. what if the employee ends up choosing to write what becomes a critical component of the company product over a weekend? Does the employee now start charging a licence to their employer? Or if the maker's new product takes off, how could the employee prove that absolutely no company time or resources were used in its creation?). Blanket terms; no problems.
But this doesn't fit the growing IndieHacker movement anymore whilst people are in FTE. Therefore, the maker moving into freelancing for a while first can be a wise move in order to clear up the whole IP issue [though their freelance contracts themselves should be carefully reviewed for similar issues].
Value investing is a fascinating topic but you'd have to show that you have expertise and techniques in the area. Hard to do that.
Do you know wikifolio? It's only now starting to go international but it has all sorts of traders with their visions and might be something you want to look at.
I absolutely agree about working together to bounce ideas around. Even with some family members (who are not entrepreneurs themselves) is extremely helpful as it gets your mind moving in different directions.
About value investing - I read The Intelligent Investor, The Millionaire Next Door, A Random Walk Down Wall Street, etc. and I agree about creating something that helps bridge the gap. You might look into the app "Learn" by Rubicoin as a solid starting point.
Do you have UserCV.com profile already? if not, i highly recommend to get one. This one is going to be useful.