Part II

My software now is 100,000 lines of typing
with about 25,000 programming language
statements and the rest voluminous
comments. About 80,000 of the 100,000 are
for on-line, and the rest are for
off-line, occasional batch runs for some
of the data manipulations. There is some
light usage of SQL Server.

I am basing on Windows and the .NET
Framework. For the Web site, that is
Microsoft's IIS (Internet Information
Server -- handles the TCP/IP Web site
communications and much more leaving a
nice environment for my code for the
actual Web pages) and ASP.NET for the Web
page controls (single line text boxes,
links, check boxes, radio buttons, etc.).

My Web pages and my code for the pages is
just dirt simple -- Microsoft writes a
little JavaScript for me, and I have yet
to write a single line of it. There's no
use of Ajax, no pull downs, pop ups, roll
overs, overlays, icons, etc. The Web site
is also dirt simple, a seven year old who
knows no English and has only a cheap
smart phone dirt simple.

I wrote a little C code; am using some
open source C code, and otherwise wrote
all the code in Visual Basic .NET -- seems
fine to me. The important stuff is the
math I derived; given the math, the code
is routine, and Visual Basic .NET is well
up to the work. Since I don't like C
syntax, I don't like the syntax of C#.
Maybe someday I will convert to C#, but in
an important sense Visual Basic .NET to C#
is just converting to a different flavor
of syntactic sugar -- indeed, IIRC there
is a translator.

So, I'm an entrepreneur working to sell
the results of some math I derived.

So, to do such a thing, think of a problem
and a solution, write the code, sell the
results. Of course, problem selection is
a biggie. And want a problem that can
solve and with own applied math with a
better solution than available otherwise;
want the software not too much to write;
want the computing resources within what
is reasonable now or soon (possibly
considering the cloud); want the results
to be a must have instead of just a
nice to have for enough users/customers
times money per each to make some big
bucks.

If you are a solo founder, then you get to
avoid a common cause of failure -- founder
disputes. As a founder, you SHOULD
understand all the work, so if you are a
solo founder you will!

Don't expect any equity funders to write
you a check until you have revenue
significant and growing rapidly. Thus, as
a solo founder with revenue significant
and growing rapidly you won't accept their
check. No one in equity funding has yet
seen even 10 cents from applied math
research; you won't get back even laughs.
Ph.D. academics is really good at work
that is "new, correct, and significant".
Business just HATES anything really new or
significant and has no idea how to check
"correct". E.g., the information
technology VCs keep looking for
simplistic, empirical patterns and have no
idea how to evaluate anything new.
Really, their looking for such patterns is
likely also just a publicity scam;
instead, they want to invest money in a
business where accountants working for
their limited partners, who, if that is
possible, know even less about math, can
say that they made a good investment. In
an analogy, they want to buy a ticket on a
plane that has already reached nice
altitude and is climbing quickly. Maybe
the startup will take their money if there
are five founders, all exhausted, all with
all credit cards maxed out, and each with
a pregnant wife.

For a good applied mathematician -- with some
original, powerful, valuable work, good at
software, with a business with significant
revenue growing rapidly -- to report to a BoD
of business people, essentially anyone
else in business, is a bummer. E.g., at
an early BoD meeting you will outline an
applied math project for some nice
progress in the business, and about the
time you get to sufficient statistics, an
ergodic assumption, completeness of
Hilbert space, the polar decomposition,
something in NP-complete, or a martingale,
the board members will soil their clothes,
leave a smelly trail to the rest room,
and then run screaming from the building.
They will meet off-site, fire you, put the
business up for sale for the cash in the
bank, and be glad you are gone. Bummer.

So, go into business for yourself. Or,
don't expect anyone in business, who no
doubt knows next to nothing about math,
doesn't even remember sin' = cos, to
create a job suitable for your talents,
training, and business value in applied
math.

Heck, at one time in business, I saved a
major company just by formulating and
solving

y'(t) = k y(t) (b - y(t))

The BoD was thrilled, but I scared the
socks off the C-suite.

That was the third time. The first time I
wrote some software that pleased the BoD
and saved the company. The second time I
beat everyone in the C-suite at Nim -- I'd
read the algorithm in Courant and Robbins.

Scared the socks off the C-suite.

Applied math in business is a wide open
field -- nearly no one there now. So, you
will be alone. You can trust the solid
math you know, the solid, new proofs you
write, and a lot in software, but no one
will do anything but laugh until you have
the big bucks in the bank; then, since you
did something valuable they don't
understand and know they could not have
done, they will fear you and hate you;
they will all agree and may gang up on
you; they may attack you. The laughing
is not nearly new: Just read the Mother
Goose "The Little Red Hen"; that's still
the case.

There's a lot of good, foundational
applied math code out there for
optimization, statistics, etc. you might
be able to exploit. In computing,
operating systems, .NET etc., SQL etc. are
astounding and from free to usually quite
cheap.

Nearly no one in business can identify,
formulate, and solve even a problem that
is basically just linear programming --
the competence in applied math in US
business is, well, they forgot plane
geometry. To expect them to derive some
simple Lagrangian relaxation is asking for
hen's teeth.

As an applied mathematician in business,
you will be essentially alone out there,
in the nearly empty intersection of math
and business. If you are successful,
then you will necessarily also be
exceptional, and necessarily nearly
everyone who is exceptional is alone.

My first server is an AMD FX-8350, 64 bit
addressing, 8 cores, 4.0 GHz processor
clock, 32 GB ECC main memory, etc. That's
a lot of computing power for the money.
Fill that up doing something valuable, buy
20 more, fill those up, and sell out for
$1 billion or so. It's a heck of an
opportunity.