If you can't find a job(in tech), why not create one

A friend once told me that if you are consulting, you are actually doing three jobs:

* finding the work

* doing the work

* getting paid for the work

Most folks in tech focus on "doing the work" but fail to realize that there is just as much nuance, skill, and specialization in steps 1 and 3.

I have consulted/contracted for about 1/2 my career. Highly recommend it to anyone to appreciate what a stable job at an employer is worth, as well as for education and upskilling. (Wrote more here on the value of contracting: https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2018/11/12/try-contractin... )

But go into this adventure with your eyes wide open about the difficulties of running business, as well as the prize for winning--to simplify, it is more and more sales, less and less coding.

A title is not enough to support a conclusion. Here’s another title for you: “If you need money, why not win the lottery”.

The answer to both is the same: “it’s not that simple”.

You can’t simply “create a job” and start earning money, especially if you want to do it ethically and don’t have a safety net or an established audience.

You aren't going to create a job at some company, so you have to work as a freelancer or found a company. Both of these are very risky and seem very non-advisable if you lack the skills to even find work at some company.

Seems to be about this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBxBhoaBc6I

Some general advice:

To be treated better, support biz that aren't in your field. My law/med/auto clients always treated me well. My tech-ish clients (geothermal/web retail) treat me well. An IT firm is more likely to see me as a cog.

I found local work thru local biz orgs like the Chamber of Commerce. I once joined BNI for a year (search it) and still have recurring business from that.

There was some good discussion about this topic earlier this week, in a different Ask HN thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41046796

I've been self-employed in IT for decades.

How I got here: The barrier to employment (in my market) was unnecessarily difficult (it still is).

I applied for jobs while seeking clients. For me, the latter was a less onerous & more productive process. I found clients to be more reasonable than employers.

Sometimes a client would eventually hire me, mostly in the same capacity. They were flexible and I still maintained my other customers.

Not sure what "tech" would constitute here. I've never ran a company before, but I would assume creating a company has a massive barrier to entry compared to working in tech. There are employees, legal, payroll, HR, and other such hurdles before you can even think about starting a tech company, not to mention the personal toll it'll take.

Working on it!

The ego is the biggest stumbling block! So are bad habits!

Anyone can do it, and increasingly I believe creating a company is actually really, really easy. The monster difficulty is the battle with the self to not procrastinate, to dream big, to be courageous, to take risks, to avoid giving up when encountering difficulties.

It’s easy to make an app or a game nowadays. A bit harder to make money from it though

Most folks aren't the type to create companies.

That's fine. That makes them "normal."

Not everyone that can successfully (and success is actually rare, there) create and run a company is healthy.

It's a piece of cake, just start a youtube channel with lots of feel-good hypothetical 'you can be rich too' content.

How do you create a job if you don't have a job?

I think you should link the YouTune video!

You need money to do that

because creating a company is way more effort and stress