So why am I talking about this? Auto-generated source code cannot generate hybrids This have the benefits of using the least number of variables (sort of), balanced with keeping the least number of “live” variable values around. You know what you declared those variables for, so you have an idea how many “unique” variables you need. Or packaging your muffins so they really look good (you need to convince people that your product is good, even if it’s really good). Or you don’t like the tedium of keeping track of muffin sales. Maybe you’re really good at baking muffins, but you’re not really good at telling people why they should buy your muffins. But it really applies to the part that you’re good at and really like doing.
Of course, everything I’ve said presupposes that your product has a software component. If the market doesn’t want a feature, that feature shouldn’t be in the product. You don’t know what benefits to convey in your sales copy if you don’t have it in your product. However, I recognise the importance of those parts. I don’t even mind writing the ebook to explain some of the concepts, because it’s like a really long extended code comment.īut the other parts are hard.
I don’t mind writing the source code to teach people how to do something. An ebook with a bunch of source code attached is basically a programming guide like one of those For Dummies programming books. Out of all of them, I like the coding part the best.
I answer questions (sometimes free of charge). I set sales prices based on the value of what the customer will get (let me tell you, this is ridiculously hard and complicated). I’ve written educational, marketing pieces of writing to promote my products. I upload the information products to the hosting server, and make sure the purchase links are working and correct.
I write the sales copy on the sales web page. I do market research to see if there’s actually a demand (although I might still create the product). And people hired to make sure customers are happy with their purchase (customer service).Īs a one-man show, I handle everything. And people hired to sell these new products (sales people). And people hired to convey the benefits of having said products to the consumers and customers (marketers). There are people hired to come up with new products for a company to sell (product managers). But marketing and product creation are related enough. Marketing and Productįrankly speaking, everything is integrated into the main sales channel. Now, I keep track of my own revenue and sales. Well, specific to their own targets anyway. Sales people want to know sales figures, monthly commission reports and revenue numbers. And they tell me what their clients and customers want, because the customers sometimes talk directly with the sales people instead of the customer service officers. I’ve talked with sales people, and they’re driven and friendly and outspoken. They ask me questions, and I answer them (whether it’s directly a programming problem or not). They tell me this part is good, or that part is funny. Is the customer having problems with logging in? Or with downloading transactional records? They are the front-line of the business, and they tell me how my software is working. I’ve worked with customer service officers. Because it allows me to solve problems of a nature that’s programmatically solvable. Of all the activities, I still like coding. I’ve been an employee at a startup, a software company and a telecommunications company. I’ve been on both sides of the employment fence.