![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I've been spending the last 10 weeks working full time on a computer program that I think I can quite likely turn into a successful web-based business. (If anyone wants to know what the business is, ask me off line or ask me to put it in a friends-locked post.) I had hoped to be in beta by the end of February. I've decided in the last few hours that, although I might still make that deadline if I had to, the product would not be in a state where it could capture its market, nor would it be something I'd be as proud of as I want to be.
So this project will still be the main focus of my life, but I'll be looking for supplemental work while I finish it. Tutoring, substitute teaching, other odd-time opportunities, and perhaps regular shift work that won't require mental attention when I'm not at work. I'm somewhat disappointed that it won't be done on the schedule I'd planned. I knew that was possible and I'm not devastated, but I wish I had been able to meet my optimistic timetable. I'll miss a natural marketing opportunity in March/April, but there'll be another in September/October, by which time I may be ready to take paying customers rather than be in public beta.
I've been working 12-14 hour days 5, sometimes 6 days a week, with an average of 6 hours a week subtracted for other appointments. At times my progress has been greatly slowed by insomnia (a side effect of a medication I started taking not long before I started) any by rust on my programming skills. In the last few days, the insomnia has been much more moderate. (Thanks to yet another pill. I still wake up after 4 hours sleep, but If I've taken a Benadryl before going to sleep the first time, I can get back to sleep for another few hours.) And the programming rust is starting to come off, though I'm still not as sharp as I remember being until I quit a decade ago.
At the pace I've had the last few days, a medium estimate for something I'd be very happy to go into public beta with is 10 weeks. That's without other work or spending time looking for that work. So if my pace per hour doesn't continue to improve, it will probably take longer. What will be will be.
One way or another, though, I need to find a way to make this happen. Capturing the market and expanding the existing market are not entirely under my control (though I do think they're likely). But producing something that I know deserves to capture the market and giving it my best shot to do so is very important to me at this stage in my life. So even though the timing's a little disappointing, I'm very glad I made the decision to do it right rather than get it over with.
So this project will still be the main focus of my life, but I'll be looking for supplemental work while I finish it. Tutoring, substitute teaching, other odd-time opportunities, and perhaps regular shift work that won't require mental attention when I'm not at work. I'm somewhat disappointed that it won't be done on the schedule I'd planned. I knew that was possible and I'm not devastated, but I wish I had been able to meet my optimistic timetable. I'll miss a natural marketing opportunity in March/April, but there'll be another in September/October, by which time I may be ready to take paying customers rather than be in public beta.
I've been working 12-14 hour days 5, sometimes 6 days a week, with an average of 6 hours a week subtracted for other appointments. At times my progress has been greatly slowed by insomnia (a side effect of a medication I started taking not long before I started) any by rust on my programming skills. In the last few days, the insomnia has been much more moderate. (Thanks to yet another pill. I still wake up after 4 hours sleep, but If I've taken a Benadryl before going to sleep the first time, I can get back to sleep for another few hours.) And the programming rust is starting to come off, though I'm still not as sharp as I remember being until I quit a decade ago.
At the pace I've had the last few days, a medium estimate for something I'd be very happy to go into public beta with is 10 weeks. That's without other work or spending time looking for that work. So if my pace per hour doesn't continue to improve, it will probably take longer. What will be will be.
One way or another, though, I need to find a way to make this happen. Capturing the market and expanding the existing market are not entirely under my control (though I do think they're likely). But producing something that I know deserves to capture the market and giving it my best shot to do so is very important to me at this stage in my life. So even though the timing's a little disappointing, I'm very glad I made the decision to do it right rather than get it over with.
