

What you would do if you were me - your opinions appreciated - Active-PHOENiX

I have to expand to the first comment to convey my point and give you enough information so that it would be feasible for you to come up with better ideas.<p>I have been around for a decade , not posted that much, now I am seeking your sincere and pragmatic opinions , I am open to any thought as long as it is practical and in the context.<p>I appreciate your time and effort.
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Active-PHOENiX
Education : B.s in Software Engineering [With Distinction] MBA [One Year
Program] Job Status : Currently unemployed My Goal and aim for the rest of my
life : Building a profitable business

I want you to imagine the environment and conditions I am in so that you can
understand the context so your opinions and ideas will resonate more.

I am now 32 years old , I live in a non-English language , third world country
. I am single , living with my family, have nothing in my name currently.

I started programming at age 14 , DOS commands and BASIC language. I was 24
when I enrolled for Bachelor Degree , I was 28 when I finished it , I was
among top students with cum laude honor which meant nothing after I wanted to
start to get a job.

I started to learn .NET stack with preference to web development. After
graduation 2 years passed till I found my first job , working for a software
company in Netherlands, a remote job, It lasted for one year till every money
transactions has been closed down for this place. You can not have any pay
pal, eBay or any money related accounts , not even a credit card.

In my latest job my roles extended to Senior Software Developer, Project
Manager and Scrum Master in which I implemented scrum process with customizing
Team Foundation Server to our projects needs with salary worth of 500$ per
month (1$ worth of 3470X). And this salary is considered nearly the ceiling
for this profession here which is ridiculously low compared to life expenses …

Unfortunately we hit a recession and inflation rate of over 120% which was
around 30% for every year, the company did not gave a raise which having it
after a year is a natural thing after yearly inflations, this made my salary
practically useless for my life, I refused and lost the job.

Job market is in very bad condition, people getting laid off , underpaid, age
limitations for entries and rules that will make you overqualified.

there are no other advantages when you employed other than your negotiated
salary , no 401K , no pension , no retirement plans …

From Technology point of view, Google code and many other useful sites has
banned this country IP's. Millions of websites are blocked and filtered here
from inside other than those that banned ips themselves.

There are no copyright law here, You can buy MS office , Adobe Systems
products and 100 more software on a DVD worth of 1$. This means your software
service is worth nothing much.

Technology wise , we are restricted , we still do not have cloud services and
I think we would never have by their measure. I have to pay 1000x more to get
what you pay 5$/month for a hosting plan.

You can not have your home business , you have to have your office with a
legal license , you can not have your online business for some industries ,
you have to go through a long journey and hurdles , these play as roadblocks
for entry … You can not protect your idea or intellectual property , there are
no effective laws.

They will close your site down at any time they want with no warning if they
think you are working against the law, be it a n ad*lt oriented word or
something related to satellites . You can not do anything , no matter you lose
how much business …

With above all which I know are not all the details , I have decided to build
a business. I can not go out of this place currently as I do not have enough
money and I do not know what to do , I do not know the culture or laws.

I have tried to keep my knowledge updated , although I know I am not a
superstar developer , I have gathered some E-books on business and business
related operations and skills I have to know about.

I am willing to work hard , learn from my mistakes and start over. Nothing is
hard for me , I will put my effort in it to make it work. I want to build a
business, I have some ideas , most of the people here do not use internet as a
day by day basis , online commerce is not that popular here , technology here
is very slow … sometimes I think I have chosen the wrong profession , but as
long as I remember I wanted to be a good programmer and I loved working with
computers.

For the current moment I am not able to get out of here, not enough money ,
keep in mind that It is very hard to get visa from other countries specially
USA, Canada and Germany.

What would you do or decide , if you were me?

I would appreciate your thoughts, workflows and roadmaps if any.

Best Regards.

~~~
jstanley
I would try and get out of that country. Interesting that you didn't say which
country it is.

