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Ask HN: Does early hobby programming lead to solo indie dev later in life?
10 points by amichail on Sept 24, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 6 comments
One might expect that early hobby programming would make you want to do your own thing rather than have a boss tell you what to code.

And even if you get a CS/SE degree, the desire to do your own thing would not change.




No. I don't think an interest in programming is coupled with entrepreneurship. There will always be a small percentage of the population that's interested in coding and another set that's interested in owning a business (or likes contracting), but the overlap of those two groups is small. When a person is highly skilled in both, you get a Bill Gates out of it.


I do webdev as a hobby. Making random cool projects and sharing them on Github for everyone to enjoy. I don't expect to get financially compensated for my efforts though. The reason I keep it as a hobby is that the thoughts of doing stuff for fun, and then /working/ on the same material at a job is excessive and means your whole life is swamped in coding, which is unhealthy.

There are many people who have 'went pro' and turned their hobby into a job, but I wouldn't be able to handle that. The thing about jobs is that you have to adhere to someone else's rules and schematics and work on things that don't excite you like a hobby would do.


I started as a hobbyist and started selling a couple of website solutions. I got hired as a "real" dev and earned more money than I ever did previously. Over a decade later, I'm in a principal role and I am not sure how I could match my comp doing my own thing. I'm not an entrepreneur, though it would be cool to disrupt something in math education, competing with SAP in a smaller niche like warehouse operations, or a couple others, and exit with >$10M having created rewarding jobs and careers for others. Thy would be cool. But I am paid really well and imagine it would take years and a lot of luck to make up the lost income.


You've somewhat described me and my high school friends. We were always creating different projects for fun in high school & university (software, websites, videos, music, podcasts) and in later life we've all gone "indie" in our own ways. I'm a solo indie dev, my friend founded a web development company and ran a solo subscription-coffee-delivery business, and my other friend turned those early VHS videos into a TV show & successful YouTube channel, standup comedy career & series of books. We all got degrees as well (CS, mathematics, engineering, design).

But I don't think it's essential, or that it works that way for everyone.


I think it's fine to have a business leader who is real businesslike and can bring in projects which are bound to succeed.

If you really can make the electronics do what you want all on your own, this can give you confidence of your capabilities & limitations in ways that other professionals may not have in their toolkit.


Could be, but not necessarily. A lot of people will do side projects or open source while having a job.




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