Nerds, Wireheads, Friends, Dreams, Money, Enemies
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Where is a place where a real nerd can connect with a real wirehead ? Jobs come and go these days. If I could connect with one or two hardware wizzards, who know how to put chips on boards, and make the connection with some sort of low-volume board stuffer, and combine that with the firmware smarts I have in my head, the two or three of us could do wonders for the planet. I can also see this plan backfiring, burning everybody who gets involved; including burning me the worst. If the trinket ever sold more than, oh, a week's worth or a month's worth of salary of either one of us, the greed and hate factor could turn friends into overnight enemies. Anybody been there ? Done that ? Never going back ? Raring to go again ? Major Failure ? Fantastic Success ? What went wrong ? What did you learn ? I just wonder.
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Where is a place where a real nerd can connect with a real wirehead ? Jobs come and go these days. If I could connect with one or two hardware wizzards, who know how to put chips on boards, and make the connection with some sort of low-volume board stuffer, and combine that with the firmware smarts I have in my head, the two or three of us could do wonders for the planet. I can also see this plan backfiring, burning everybody who gets involved; including burning me the worst. If the trinket ever sold more than, oh, a week's worth or a month's worth of salary of either one of us, the greed and hate factor could turn friends into overnight enemies. Anybody been there ? Done that ? Never going back ? Raring to go again ? Major Failure ? Fantastic Success ? What went wrong ? What did you learn ? I just wonder.
I have been lucky to have only experienced moderate success in my life. :rolleyes:
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Where is a place where a real nerd can connect with a real wirehead ? Jobs come and go these days. If I could connect with one or two hardware wizzards, who know how to put chips on boards, and make the connection with some sort of low-volume board stuffer, and combine that with the firmware smarts I have in my head, the two or three of us could do wonders for the planet. I can also see this plan backfiring, burning everybody who gets involved; including burning me the worst. If the trinket ever sold more than, oh, a week's worth or a month's worth of salary of either one of us, the greed and hate factor could turn friends into overnight enemies. Anybody been there ? Done that ? Never going back ? Raring to go again ? Major Failure ? Fantastic Success ? What went wrong ? What did you learn ? I just wonder.
I've never gone as low as designing boards. But I have worked for a number of startups and folks that had bright ideas here are my experiences. First company I worked for - the PYXIS innovation, amazing company, worked with the best president & met the smartest man I ever programmed with there - He's a mgr at Google now. They had an excellent idea & product solving many problems of the modern GIS environment & allowing military, scientists, GIS, to make informed excellent ideas. - The problem, company laid me off 4 times, Things have turned into a 10 yrs R & D exercise. Excellent technology - lack issues bringing it to market, paid well when I was working, when I wasn't working and volunteering my time during funding rounds - got behind in my bills had trouble catching up. Worked for a GIS - Researcher in Calgary, he dreamed of turning his research into a company, trouble was he used his research grant money for that, big no no. Padre Software - Worked for a great company, great employers, trouble was no room for career growth as it's still a small company. My experience it's the majority of the small companies doing true engineering and building things and stretching the limits of technology, at least in Canada. The larger companies are build, monetize, maintain. Not so much engineering. I'd love to work for a smaller company and do great things, the issue is in my experience they can't afford the level I am at these days like the larger companies can. I don't have the money to run my own start up.... Then there is the whole monetization thing which tends to kill companies..
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I've never gone as low as designing boards. But I have worked for a number of startups and folks that had bright ideas here are my experiences. First company I worked for - the PYXIS innovation, amazing company, worked with the best president & met the smartest man I ever programmed with there - He's a mgr at Google now. They had an excellent idea & product solving many problems of the modern GIS environment & allowing military, scientists, GIS, to make informed excellent ideas. - The problem, company laid me off 4 times, Things have turned into a 10 yrs R & D exercise. Excellent technology - lack issues bringing it to market, paid well when I was working, when I wasn't working and volunteering my time during funding rounds - got behind in my bills had trouble catching up. Worked for a GIS - Researcher in Calgary, he dreamed of turning his research into a company, trouble was he used his research grant money for that, big no no. Padre Software - Worked for a great company, great employers, trouble was no room for career growth as it's still a small company. My experience it's the majority of the small companies doing true engineering and building things and stretching the limits of technology, at least in Canada. The larger companies are build, monetize, maintain. Not so much engineering. I'd love to work for a smaller company and do great things, the issue is in my experience they can't afford the level I am at these days like the larger companies can. I don't have the money to run my own start up.... Then there is the whole monetization thing which tends to kill companies..
CdnSecurityEngineer wrote:
"...monetization thing which tends to kill companies..."
I would be very interested in reading your experiences with respect to that one aspect. "...’Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings..."[^] What does the word monetization mean in the context you have used it ? How have you seen it kill companies ?
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CdnSecurityEngineer wrote:
"...monetization thing which tends to kill companies..."
I would be very interested in reading your experiences with respect to that one aspect. "...’Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings..."[^] What does the word monetization mean in the context you have used it ? How have you seen it kill companies ?
In Canada there are a lot of government programs to drive innovation and design and technology. So in my experience what happens, is companies hire a bunch of engineers to engineer this killer product and then suck at bringing it to market! One really has to wonder why that is, in the years of my professional experience, companies need early adapters of their technology. These early adapters need to buy the product invest money in the development of the product so the company can meet the needs of the early adapters while continuing to hammer out a better generic product for wide spread consumerism. I find this especially true in the IT sector. Monetization to me, means taking all you engineering, which is funded through private/angel/VC investors or government R&D funding or grants and developing a plan to sell or generate revenue from your engineering efforts. Even once you've developed a plan it doesn't always materialize overnight. The difficulty is, you can hire smart, ambitious university graduates cheap to drive you engineering, the problem with that is they're ambitious and they're cheap (I Know I used to be one). So you have to hire some seasoned engineers to lead and drive the product & process, the problem there is they're not so cheap, the complexity of your product determines the ratio of seasoned vs graduate engineers that you need. When you find an early adopter who will buy your product, now you really struggle because you need their money, but you can't customize to much otherwise you end up with a product only they can use, and therefore you're just a glorified consulting shop milking off of your early adopter (I've experienced this ). You never actually get to develop the general product which will allow you to see real cash flow. The biggest struggle for any young startup is to keep enough revenue, allowing them to keep their staff, especially senior staff in place while they goto market at the same time as remaining generic enough to be marketable to more then your early adapters of your technology. If you can manage that you'll become a millionaire.
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In Canada there are a lot of government programs to drive innovation and design and technology. So in my experience what happens, is companies hire a bunch of engineers to engineer this killer product and then suck at bringing it to market! One really has to wonder why that is, in the years of my professional experience, companies need early adapters of their technology. These early adapters need to buy the product invest money in the development of the product so the company can meet the needs of the early adapters while continuing to hammer out a better generic product for wide spread consumerism. I find this especially true in the IT sector. Monetization to me, means taking all you engineering, which is funded through private/angel/VC investors or government R&D funding or grants and developing a plan to sell or generate revenue from your engineering efforts. Even once you've developed a plan it doesn't always materialize overnight. The difficulty is, you can hire smart, ambitious university graduates cheap to drive you engineering, the problem with that is they're ambitious and they're cheap (I Know I used to be one). So you have to hire some seasoned engineers to lead and drive the product & process, the problem there is they're not so cheap, the complexity of your product determines the ratio of seasoned vs graduate engineers that you need. When you find an early adopter who will buy your product, now you really struggle because you need their money, but you can't customize to much otherwise you end up with a product only they can use, and therefore you're just a glorified consulting shop milking off of your early adopter (I've experienced this ). You never actually get to develop the general product which will allow you to see real cash flow. The biggest struggle for any young startup is to keep enough revenue, allowing them to keep their staff, especially senior staff in place while they goto market at the same time as remaining generic enough to be marketable to more then your early adapters of your technology. If you can manage that you'll become a millionaire.
I continue to read your ideas with interest, bordering on fascination.
CdnSecurityEngineer wrote:
the complexity of your product determines the ratio of seasoned vs graduate engineers that you need.
A numeric evaluation of that is impossible. Until somebody invents wealth-o-matic, I suppose; hmm, I can put it online, and offer it free and cover it with annoyance-ware so that people close it before they consider the first thing about it. Seems like everybody believes that "this product is so simple, it's actually amazing" and then it has 9 separate microprocessors with 300 paths between them on a 7 layer board. Anyway, how would anybody define "complexity" ? After calculating that number, what ratio would I need for this amazingly simple device that needs a seven layer board inside to connect the nine different microprocessors ? (from nine different chip makers, of course).
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I continue to read your ideas with interest, bordering on fascination.
CdnSecurityEngineer wrote:
the complexity of your product determines the ratio of seasoned vs graduate engineers that you need.
A numeric evaluation of that is impossible. Until somebody invents wealth-o-matic, I suppose; hmm, I can put it online, and offer it free and cover it with annoyance-ware so that people close it before they consider the first thing about it. Seems like everybody believes that "this product is so simple, it's actually amazing" and then it has 9 separate microprocessors with 300 paths between them on a 7 layer board. Anyway, how would anybody define "complexity" ? After calculating that number, what ratio would I need for this amazingly simple device that needs a seven layer board inside to connect the nine different microprocessors ? (from nine different chip makers, of course).
Complexity is a very hard thing to gauge, because an equal component in the equation is when is it complex but "good enough" and that is a slippery slope. It seems the general public is willing to accept the first the latest and the greatest providing that it is the latest and greatest with all it's bugs. Consider the iPhone 5 & their mapping trouble. If you're not the first to market in this "era", with your bugs, it seems your idea & your technology is Dead on arrival. I've seen plenty of applications demo'd that solve some major defects in facebook, but I bet you couldn't tell me 1. The reason being with all their bugs and all millions of users accept facebook. So if I could define complexity.... I wouldn't be hanging out on code project on a Wednesday night.
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Complexity is a very hard thing to gauge, because an equal component in the equation is when is it complex but "good enough" and that is a slippery slope. It seems the general public is willing to accept the first the latest and the greatest providing that it is the latest and greatest with all it's bugs. Consider the iPhone 5 & their mapping trouble. If you're not the first to market in this "era", with your bugs, it seems your idea & your technology is Dead on arrival. I've seen plenty of applications demo'd that solve some major defects in facebook, but I bet you couldn't tell me 1. The reason being with all their bugs and all millions of users accept facebook. So if I could define complexity.... I wouldn't be hanging out on code project on a Wednesday night.
CdnSecurityEngineer wrote:
So if I could define complexity.... I wouldn't be hanging out on code project on a Wednesday night.
Hi CdnSecurityEngineer, Not to worry: the Lounge is exactly the place for people to write in sophisticated language about what they do not really understand, and cannot define ! I try to uphold that standard, personally, although I am not sure why :) yrs, Bill
This thing we tell of can never be found by seeking, yet only seekers find it. Abu Yazid Al-Bistami (Persian, Sufi, 804-872)