Since I am currently starting my new business, I thought it should be useful for me to read more about investing. Well, someone like Warren Buffet started investing in financial terms from very young age, most of us don't. So I run into this particular link, and that reminds me about my own enterpreneurship attempts.
Personally I had loved math since I was 7 ,learned programming since I was 14 and start being serious learning my religion since I was 13. Not really an advantage for me during high schools, since we was not taught programming and won't get any points for it. But after being memed by my father since I was five about he having a system working for him, and he only had to command the system to fulfill his wishes, I know that programming is the path I should go.
It turned out that I was right. During university my programming skill help me greatly to understand most of the math taught ( and not taught ) to me. I don't need to derive mathematic equations myself, since the computer can do it for me, but the most helpful part is the computer's calculation speed and graphing capability. I don't know if anyone can turn hundreds 3D points into a graph in their mind, but I know I can't, that is where programming can be a really useful thing to know.
I think that was an investment in my part. But my friend told me something that I can't deny, "Fendy I am amazed how you can make hundreds of programs, but still make no money from your skill". Well, it is not really that I am not trying to. But some months before that, I just lost my first entrepreneurship attempt, after I worked the whole 6 months to make the full system without receiving any payment, during the beginning of the commercialization.
That was really a shock to me. That system was like my own child, I weave every part of its DNA, hoping that one day the system would grow and become sentient on its own right ( I designed the system so it could grow and evolve, evolution sometimes is the only way to answer some mathematic problems, extrasolar planet finders being one of its application, you will need a GRAPE to do accurately it however ). I had read OA during those times and some ideas leading to the creation of the system was based on things written there ( Have to thanks Todd a lot for some discussion about sexuality in the OA main list, that was really helpful ). Having nothing to do anymore in Jakarta, I have pack up and go back to my hometown Surabaya, and here I am until now.
In Surabaya, I spent several months writing things in my blogs, answering questions in Yahoo!Answer and taking some Japanese courses. It is funny though that during these downtime, I learned lots of new things from the internet, made several simple programs every month. One day when I was answering questions, I notice that there are certain questions that I can answer very quickly in detail, if only I have the right program to do it. I spent two days to do the code and start answering questions in detail in short time.
Then my friend come and asked me, "Why dont you sell it for $2 ? I can market it for you.", that surely reminded me on the thread a net friend of mine, Chris had started in Great Big Group some months before, my answer at that time was "lets start immediately." So I spent some weeks learning how PayPal works and start selling programs in my website, while my friend take care about the web design and marketing part. The result was not great yet, but one ideas done make more ideas come out. Robert Kiyosaki said in his books, that most people lost two or three companies before they own the one that made them filthy rich. And information age, provide a way to own a company at the cost of less than $50, the only thing required is idea alone and in my case I got more idea after I execute an idea.
So here's some lesson I learned and wish to share with everyone who read this post :
- Starting a business is more about people than about money.
- Don't be afraid to fail. Had I didn't do my first entrepreneurship attempt, I won't know how to do web-programming at all.
- Work even when you are not being paid. Someone who never want to work without being paid, are not going to be paid when they are not working.
- Don't waste your breath to curse or blame someone. Each breath worth a lesson to learn.
I really hope that everyone who read this particular entry could start being creative and found their own business. There are countless number of web-based business that already helped billions of people in the planet to live their lives. Some of them like PayPal, Google, Yahoo!, GNU Project and FSF had spent billions of dollars and millions work hours to place the foundation and infrastructure required, to ensure that all creative, talented and brave entrepreneurs in the information age to start their business for less than the cost of a bag of peanuts. So what hold you down ? Feel free to contact us, in case you need some help setting up your web-based business.
