
You Are the Exception to the Rule - WadeF
https://zapier.com/blog/2012/06/17/you-are-exception-rule/
======
apl
This type of saccharine feel-good prose irritates to no end. No, chances are
you're not the exception to the rule of mediocrity; that's just a matter of
statistics. Believing so in absence of hard evidence to the contrary is
delusional and won't make things better.

Entrepeneurs fail every day. Hundreds, maybe thousands. Don't fall for the
cheap words of encouragement.

[ADDENDUM: I still don't trust the "Most coders can't do FizzBuzz" meme that
generally accompanies the flowery you're-a-special-snowflake-talk. Applicants
maybe, but that doesn't say much. There's tons of decent programmers out
there, and 99% of them won't get famous or found a sustainable business.]

~~~
Cushman
Conversely, I see zero value in this kind of reactionarily pessimistic you're-
average-at-everything-and-even-if-you're-good-you'll-probably-fail-anyway
stuff that always turns up on any encouraging article.

You get zero points for being able to say "See, I was right" when someone
fails. Completely aside from that, it's factually wrong; people on this site
are quite likely to have skills and resources that the average person cannot
_comprehend_. Being a "decent programmer" is a fabulously valuable skill in
the modern world. You aren't guaranteed to be able to leverage it into capital
right away, but if you work hard and get out of your own head it's fully
achievable.

~~~
heeton
I like to think:

"I am not a special snowflake, the sun does not shine out of my ass. But, if I
work hard and apply my skills creatively in areas where others aren't it doing
it as much, I may well have a shot at something cool. At least, a better shot
than if I did nothing today"

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smarx
I have to say, my startup has struggled with this. We're a two-man shop, and
neither of us buys phone apps, pays for virtual goods, clicks on ads, etc. It
tends to make us think that other people don't do those things either, despite
the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Part of the article's conclusion is, "Get the product in front of your core
audience," and I suspect that's the only way for the inexperienced to
accurately gauge the value of their product.

~~~
allardschip
It's the way for anyone, experienced or not.

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nadam
Just go to donwload.com or Apple's appstore and look at the tens of thousands
of applications/apps there. All those programmers who created those
applications/apps can do FizzBuzz and more. But only a fraction of them make
good money from these applications. Making good money from a software product
is hard. Yes, go for it, but these kind of motivational posts will be a bit
irritating after your first failure.

~~~
manmal
Many of these apps and tools do not have unique creators - there are devs who
churn out apps like crazy, multiple of apps per year. Also, many do not try to
make a living off of this - go figure, how much can you possibly earn with a
top-10% mobile app? How long will earnings last? Seems more like a lottery to
me. The article's writer means SaaS products, and I doubt that your chances of
financial success are nearly as high with mobile apps you put in stores.

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follower
As developers we often have the mistaken belief that "anyone else could do
what I can do, would rather do it themselves and won't pay for anyone else to
do it for them".

This comes from a mindset that because _I_ can do something, would rather than
do it myself and wouldn't pay for someone else to do it for me means that no
one else would either.

Just because you can solve a problem yourself, would take the time to do so
and wouldn't pay someone else to do it instead doesn't mean the rest of the
world thinks like that.

For most people, they can't do what you do and/or wouldn't take the time to do
it and/or would rather pay someone else to do it for them. That's the rule to
which you're an exception.

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patdennis
As a non-programmer who works in a field that 99% of programmers aren't aware
even exists, I would like to point out that there are a lot of simple software
programs to be made for specialized purposes in various fields. They don't
exist because nobody who can build them knows they're necessary, and the
people who need them don't know they're possible.

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ilkandi
I met a 50ish solo programmer a few months ago. His application handles an
issue for a specific subset of nonprofit org (I'm probably not giving away too
much if I say, churches). The app is not web enabled, it's not social, it
doesn't run on ios android or mac. From our conversation I inferred he spends
hardly any time on marketing it because he doesn't need more users. Yet he
makes a comfortable living solely from the licenses, doesn't touch the app for
weeks at a time, and adds new features on his own schedule.

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tlogan
Question: is zapier.com profitable?

(I'm asking because if zapier is profitable then blog post has some merit. If
not then... oh well)

~~~
nickconfer
They're set up very well. Can't say more than that, I'll leave it to their
team to give the details they choose.

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dougws
This is absolutely true. Market validation goes both ways! Don't assume a
product is either viable _or_ unviable without confirmation from the intended
consumers.

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ams6110
_if you search around the internet you'll find dozens of products that aren't
complicated, but make stacks of Benjamin Franklins for the developers of those
products_

I think this is particularly true if you can target a point of friction in the
sales process, e.g. real-estate. I have had agents tell me that if they think
something will make them one extra sale a year they won't even hesitate to
spend a couple of hundred dollars on it.

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jiakeliu
I think people tend to generalize things. I, for example, have the mentality
that if I understand\learn something with little effort, then others can do
the same. The truth is, the others usually don't bother to put forth that
little effort, which makes me the exception to the rule. For example, I
recently made a decent chunk of money by creating a simple WordPress site that
was valuable enough for my client...I would've paid a fraction of what my
client paid if I was him. So I definitely concur with this post.

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horsehead
I've seen SEVERAL times that "most programmers can't solve fizzbuzz." I did
this after just a few months of learning python, on paper no less (Ok, i had
one if/elif statement in the wrong spot. a quick run of the script in the
command line showed me it didn't work how I thought it should and I fixed it).

But are there any DATA that corroborate this largely anecdotal statement? I
figure, it _has_ to be much less prevalent than these statements. (Or if it
isn't, I better get my ass in gear and really learn to program so I can make
the big bucks).

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rekky123
Bullshit.

