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Ask HN: Help HN, I'm being overpaid, can't build startup
Long-time HN contributor, throwaway account, for reasons obvious.

I seem to found myself in a cosy local maxima problem: I'm currently getting paid a $1200+ daily rate, for building what is essentially a CRUD app, at however many days I like (statistically around 3-4 day per week, can do more, or less, just as long as products get shipped), working from home.

This seems like an ideal position to bootstrap a business from; however, I find myself in a strange lack of self-motivation which I usually had: all my senses are coming up blank.

To recap, my primary motivation with building businesses from scratch came from my aching pocket (cash); secondarily, the usual 3 creative motivators: autonomy/mastery/purpose. Currently (and for the foreseeable future), all of these are satisfied (working from home, using whatever tools I see fit, on a project that will make a couple of million dollar difference for the client). Challenge level is low, but that by itself doesn't lend itself to working on business problems specifically (eg. some machine learning ideas has a much higher challenge+reward rating).

I'm currently studying investing to figure out how to make the best of this situation long-term, and outsourcing for getting additional leverage. None of these are satisfying my intrinsic motivation of building high-impact online businesses -the core purpose I've been working on for the past 6 years.

Is there something wrong with me? Am I being maladjusted for still trying to achieve the same goals, but for obsoleted reasons? Have you been in a similar situation, and if so, what was the correct way out?

Thanks for reading.
And apart from a flawed analysis of the Japanese society, on what historical examples are you basing your "theory"?

Oh, and just to have a counter example: Switzerland
Already being discussed here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2905627

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The same conclusions on the HN comments? I didn't see those conclusions, sorry; the bits about measuring voltage rather than power, for example, was buried in a comment well down the page. Most of the comments were about how the kid's results were not surprising / not revolutionary, not that they were most probably fundamentally wrong because of measurement error.
Sorry, but to my understanding that's not even close to Erlang's code hot-swapping.

In Erlang one could easily update any module, and re-importing modules is quite complicated in Python. Update will be seamless, too - old code will be running its last reductions (so already connected clients won't experience downtime) while new messages will be processed with a new code.

Surely, it is possible to achieve the same in Python, but that'd require a lot more code than monkey-patching several values.
The "women do more housework" thing has been debunked over and over, at least in the west. You can only arrive at that conclusion by excluding traditional "man's work" jobs like yard work and car repair.

On the other hand, I have heard Japanese and Chinese men say they expect their wives to do all the housework, so maybe there really is a difference.
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Then why discourage the young lad with titles like this. Why not make it less harsh of a title for the blog, why not make less harsh comments.

I swear, adults are so incredibly harsh with very young people who are just trying to improve things, and using their minds, while learning.

I bet the kid reads this site, and all the comments on the stuff.
Not really. Do you even know the mission of the Flock browser?
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How are they a software business? They are not developing software just consuming it. Is not much different than using a cellphone. You wouldn't call them a technology company because of that.
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It makes you freeze your consoles :-)
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Won't all modern browsers include the encoding in the Content-Type header?

They should. If so there's no need to guess.
So what's your UI metaphor for Ctrl+f?

My point is that software offers possibilities that go way beyond our real-life experience; there might not always exist a good real-world metaphor for all useful operations, at which point education becomes crucial.
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More people should try living on the street. Pretty soon you're rummaging in every bin you see, to find the goodies contained.
Wouldn't massive immigration solve the problem very rapidly?

Edit: Never mind. I just saw your third edit.
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Hey now. If software started validating its input, what would virus writers do for a living?
Seems like you need to switch your motivation to building businesses because you have ideas that can only be executed properly in that context?
Maybe if they can produce a truly realistic mechanical feedback system. The 'haptic touchscreens' I've seen have generally been 'we buzz this little offset-counterweight pager motor when you hit something'

Doing it right would probably require some sort of truly flexible (and incredibly resillient) display, with some sort of adaptive force-feedback (matrix of tiny pistons with pressure control, or something)

The patently apple article linked gives a bit more detail about the image presented, but it still looks very low resolution (although there looks to be some novelty in suppressing feedback from surrounding haptic elements)
You... tap on a spanner, then a magnifying glass... http://www.tabletpcreview.com/shared/picture.asp?f=6024
It was also one of the main factors Edward Gibbon blamed in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. However he had a somewhat different mechanism in mind than lionhearted's comment: he argued that Romans, as they got wealthy, no longer wished to personally serve in the military, so they hired mercenaries instead, which had the three effects of reducing the military readiness of normal Romans, filling the army with less loyal foreigners, and increasing the tax burden on agriculture. (It's worth noting that there's a lot of debate among later historians over whether that's the correct analysis.)
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Upvoted! I was reading those bullets and mentally ticking them off against Ur/Web as well.
There's a lot more to the feedback one gets from a good keyboard than just "tiny vibrations". Haptic virtual keyboards may well end up replacing hackers' / writers' primitive push button ones one day, but they must get pretty damn good before they do.

That being said, I'm quite certain this is the future. At least for mainstream users.
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I think the most important think you must implement to have more adoption is to have an on-line (no registration required) demo of your software.
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I agree. It allows sloppy developers to be liberal in what they do, and leads to increasingly complex (and incompatible) implementations necessary to be compatible with all the edge cases.

HTML is a good example. Browsers are very tolerate of malformed HTML, which is nice for beginners who don't want to worry too much about perfect syntax.

The problem is each browser handles the unspecified cases differently, which leads to differences in the way pages are rendered, security issues like XSS, etc.

Robustness should just be built into the protocol/format/spec, if necessary. HTML5 gets this right by specifying an algorithm that all parsers should use to get consistent behavior, while still being tolerant of imperfect syntax: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_soup#HTML5
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Everyone I know can get an SMS on their phone. Only a couple of those people can get email on their phone. That means that if I want to contact most of them quickly, but quietly, I have only 1 choice: SMS.

SMS would die quickly if something else came along that became ubiquitous overnight. Since we know that isn't going to happen, there's no point complaining about it.
> It is a total hack, but it works in most cases.

yeah I had to do that kind of stuff as well.

> Not using redirects on xmlhttp requests is pretty limiting

I don't agree. The reality is that it should not be needed, redirect-after-post (let alone DELETE or PUT) is a workaround for browser UI issues ("Do you want to re-send this POST request" popups on refresh) and URI localization (bookmarkability of the landing page). There are reasons for redirects in xhr scenarios, but they have to do mostly with clients "caching" old URLs and the service changing its URI structure.

There's little to no reason to send a redirect (let alone a temporary one) to an XHR.
There is no way other countries would stop accepting the US$, as long as the US has things that those other countries want to buy. The US has a lot of those things ranging from food to high-tech, so there's absolutely no risk that other countries would totally reject the US currency.

Yes, the exchange rates may well decline further, and this will force you to reduce your net imports - but that's only fair. You can only profit from other countries' work for so long without sending something tangible in return.

And as far as the "addiction to debt" is concerned, it gets a bit old to repeat the same things over and over again, but have you heard of the sectoral balances? Analyze the flows of money between the three macroeconomic sectors (the federal government, the domestic private sector, and the foreign sector), and it should become clear to you that the massive increase in debt over the last two years is simply a reflection of the fact that the US private sector has managed to amass insane amounts of wealth. [1]

The distribution of that wealth may be very lopsided, but then it's the distribution of that wealth that needs to be challenged, not the buildup of debt.

[1] Part of the debt build-up obviously also reflects foreign holdings, but the one thing that really stands out in the last few years in the US is how the private sector has gone from a deficit to a surplus as people attempt to fix their balance sheets.
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I'm going to assume you don't do hiring at your company, then. Because the market is already flooded with crappy developers. The resumes that come in are often amazingly bad. Of those that pass that check, most of them can't even talk the talk. And fewer still can actually code anything worthwhile.
what would the web look like if we didn't care about backwards compat? ...who cares?
I find keys by touch. If I'm pressing ctrl-F4 (for instance) I'm find the F4 by the slightly larger gap between it and F5.

Removing this possibility would make typing a _lot_ harder.
"This has happened many times through history. It's happening in Japan right now. If I became an advisor to anyone in the Japanese government, I'd advocate two things as chief priorities - (1) exceedingly good relations with China, and (2) re-militarize.
Then join the next war they can on America's or China's side. Combined with some standard messages of nationalism/strength/growth/unity, birth rates would almost certainly increase"

This is possibly the worst idea I've ever seen proposed on this site. An actual war between the three richest countries on the planet could possibly make the world unlivable for all of humanity. It's not a good solution for putting the Japanese economy on track.

This isn't the 20th century. Our mastery over the natural world has grown far too powerful for a war between strong countries. If you can make a convincing argument that war is inevitable even in these circumstances, then you've also explained the Fermi Paradox.
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Here's my opinion: Give it some time. I think you have the entrepreneur's equivalent of writer's block. Use the time to explore your interests and build up savings for when you finally feel the spark.

When you do, don't quit. Instead, break up the system into small components and outsource their development (always in technology you're comfortable with -- you'll need to know intimately how each is built), using your time to integrate these components to make the final system. And good luck.
I'm not so sure about your view of Europe. I agree that a large scale war in Western Europe, especially involving Germany like the ones in the 19th and first half of the 20th century seem extremely unlikely. But Europe is larger than that.

The war in Yugoslavia was not so long ago, for one thing.

For another, Hungary got itself a nice extreme right regime that seems rather keen to transform the country into an authoritarian state. What if they decide, at some point, that the land occupied by some of the Magyars in neighboring countries should really belong to Hungary again?

Keeping the peace in Europe is far from a finished project.
> Oh, and just to have a counter example: Switzerland

The Swiss are a strange bunch of people. As recent (or as long ago) as 500 years Machiavelli was praising their military spirit compared to the mercantile and money-oriented one of his Florentine fellows. He was predicting that the city of Florence's reliance on mercenaries instead of building a military spirit from the bottom up would finally lead to its submission. He was of course proven right, because while the Swiss have managed to preserve their independence through the centuries Tuscany was soon to fall under external dominance, but it begs the question if we would have been better off with a more militarized Florence but presumably less inclined to works of art (so no Michelangelo or Galleria degli Uffizi), or if it's ok that things happened just the way they did. Also, see Sparta vs. Athens.
Wow, I had no idea that Processing has been around for so long -- I'd only heard about it sometime in the last two years.
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I think he means suck resources more in a financial way, the money to build a big all encompassing system will have to come from somewhere and it will result in less money for patient care in the short term. Of course if the system was actually built and working it would then free up resources.
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>There are no barbarians at the gates, they have all been (mostly) civilized.

Given the resurgence of nationalism and right movements holding anti-immigration feelings in Europe right now, that's far from an universal opinion. According to these guys, our gates are wide open and the barbarians are breeding in our backyards. Barbarians being, of course, undesirable immigrants from poor third-world countries, not cool white guys from across the pond.
It would be great if this algorithm will work out, but as we have seen with other aspects (like google search and SEO) there will be people who can game those algorithms.
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As you might be aware Japan had a “lost decade” during the 90s. It experienced almost no growth of the GDP. There are many theories as to why, but the most convincing one is: The Japanese “Baby Boomers” retired during this decade.

Richard Koo has a different view on this, one that should also inform the thinking in the US and rest of the Western world these days. According to him, the Japanese "lost decade" was caused by an asset price bubble collapse in housing. The parallels to the global financial crisis are fascinating.

See, for example, his talk which is linked here: http://seekerblog.com/2009/04/11/richard-koo-more-on-the-bal...
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There are fewer people in all of Sweeden than the city in which I currently live. I don't think theirs is the keyboard the world should be optimising for.
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The problem isn't that Ctrl-D is better than Ctrl-F, but that you aren't using Metal Scroll and/or Ctrl-Shift-F.
I don't agree that Japanese don't want sex. How else do you explain love hotels being found everywhere?
Same article, without all the distractions and better formatting: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/print/2011/08/crazy-90...
everyone knows how much better it is to type on tablets, right? right.. yeah well that's why the keyboard isn't going anywhere.
I meant you don't pay for Facebook. Facebook is collecting the data, not the sites who add the Like button.
Interesting, but is this actually available yet or just a concept? (i.e. are we looking at vaporware?)
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I'm confused by your comment. Are you proposing Switzerland as a "peaceful" country as a counter example? Due to mountainous terrain, they are fairly "isolated"/protected from invasion (one of the points above re what works to provide long term peace) and they also have about 2/3's of the adult (male?) population as part of a standing militia (which is in line somewhat with another point: "military supremacy").

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Switzerland

Heinlein: "An armed society is a polite society".

Unknown (at least by me): "A man of peace must be strong".

I don't necessarily agree with all the conclusions drawn by the OP but I don't see how Switzerland is some kind of "counter example". Please clarify as I am honestly baffled.

Thanks.
Keep in mind that the guys at rovio made 51 other games before they came up with the hit that was angry birds. The lesson is to keep trying until you have a hit :)
I've got 6 apps out there, and for the life of me i can't pinpoint which ones will or wont succeed, you're not the only one scratching your head wondering.
Good luck!
Thanks for working for us for free. We'd really appreciate if you'd continue to donate your time to strengthen our market position, even though we just slapped you in the face.
Thanks for sharing. There's nothing wrong with you, but you obviously perceive something to be wrong about your situation.

I would suggest that the lack of self-motivation stems from a lack of challenges. My own experiences echo the conclusions of what research I have seen, that a feeling of flow comes from having challenges on par with your abilities.

A strongly related motivational tool that has worked wonders for me thoughout the years is to strive to create value, not success.

I was actually in a very similar situation to yours just three months ago (although far from making $1200/day). My mind was in a loop coming up with, as you say, "high-impact" online business ideas. Facebook scale potential was the main criteria. But that thinking kept me in a feeling of being lost, because how would I know what idea was the best bet for success?

Then I remembered that I usually proclaim my mantra to be just that, "strive to create value, not success" (which comes from an interview with Einstein in Life Magazine from 1952) and changed my main criteria from "high impact" to "best learning experience". I.e., what provides the most fun challenge?

After only a couple of weeks this sent me hell bent on a mission that now consumes most of my waking hours (when I'm not at my day job as a startup CEO). It is extremely liberating to relieve yourself from the pressure of being successful. To realize that success probably comes easiest as a by-product of doing something fun.

I still aim for the skies. But I define high impact as my secondary goal instead of primary, which is to take on a compelling challenge and grow from the experience.
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SMS is more secure than email. I would not send my credit card details over email. Would it be so bad to send credit card details using SMS?
Here's my advice, on a slightly different note to the others:
Learn how to make iOS apps, and make a dozen or so of them (obviously, make them smallish apps). Charge $1 each, and have a free/lite version of each app too.
This will teach you nontechnical but very important career skills: how to ship, entrepreneurialism, and initiative!

As for your worries about signalling mechanisms, there are 4 SIMPLE answers to that: github, meetups, stackoverflow, and apps in the app store. You sound like a smart guy - get busy!
Another theory:

As this article points out a lot of woman aren't marrying or having kids because "being both employed and married is tough in Asia.".

In other words, these countries have enough equality where women are allowed in the labor force but not enough where the society has set up strong institutions to deal with women in the labor force. Another economist article dealt with the impossibility of finding day care in Japan. Lacking these institutions causes a huge economic cost to exist for having kids.

Indeed, among developed nations, you'll find a positive correlation between gender equality and total fertility rate.

Raw data:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Gender_Gap_Report

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_de...

In Europe, the countries with the least gender gap have the highest fertility rates. (> 1.8 for all the top 5). The countries with the most are among the lowest (< 1.5 for lowest 5).

You see this as well with Asia. South Korea has one of the lowest fertility rates on the planet and extremely high gender inequality. Same is true with Japan. The article notes that it hasn't hit China yet; I'd be surprised if the trend does materialize with (urban) China's vastly higher gender equality. (gotta give the Communist Party props there)

My policy recommendation to maintain replacement level TFR is to follow the example of Norway or Iceland: reduce the economic and social cost of having kids (parental leave policies, free day care, etc.) - a lot cheaper than going to war.
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