Salute solo Programmers and welcome Solopreneurs
Jean-Louis Gassée’s writings are always neat. When I read A Salute To Solo Programmers a whole tower bell rang in my head. He claims that solo programmers life is now complicated because of technological reasons.
Those were the days… Computers and their operating systems were simple and the P in Personal Computers applied to the programmer. He or she (mostly he at the time) could make a dent in the universe while sitting alone in a cabin in the woods.
True that, but that’s not even half of the problem. Solo programmers do not exist anymore because “just programming” is not enough anymore. When I work on my products, programming takes roughly 25% of my time. Then there’s all the rest: design, copywriting, support and marketing.
Solo programmers are an extinguishing species because they are transmuting into entrepreneurs. Creating software is easier than ever nowadays, but the “cabin in the woods” mindset is not enough anymore to build a viable business.