The pleasure of helping people
Recently I got sponsored on GitHub for the first time ever and received a very appreciative review from the person for the project My Web Shortcuts. The fact that someone liked the project so much that they took the time to share a review AND give me their hard-earned money, no matter the amount, delights me.
What have I built? It's just a Chrome extension, but it is helping someone, and making their life better by maybe 0.1%, but THAT MATTERS!
I'm just 17, and I have started my journey in tech, my career essentially by helping people and improving their lives. It gives me goosebumps to think how much I would be capable of doing in a few years of hard work.
This is what I want to do, this is what I love to do. People usually aim for jobs that are stable, kinda, and risk-free. I can't really think of myself doing a job for my whole life, yes I may start with it, but I wouldn't be happy unless the company I'm working for is doing some noble work or at least what I do in the company requires creative thinking and exploration and NOT just the mundane stuff. That too won't sustain because I crave novelty, innovation & doing my own stuff.
What does one do as a web developer at a company?
- I will work for a company which works for customers.
- Now those customers could be other businesses, governments, organisations or common individuals.
- If the company works for customers, I'm indirectly working for customers.
- If the company works for other businesses or organisations, then at the end of the chain they will also be serving the common individuals.
No matter how you look at it, you will always work for the common public directly or indirectly. So if I have to work for people, why not work for them directly? That's what business is.
Problem-solving is everywhere. Every company is solving a problem and helping people in some way or the other. Surely money is involved, it can't be done without it and it's essential for the company's survival, but that's just because of how the system works, the main goal should always be serving the customers, solving their problems, and helping them.
I'm not aiming to become the next Jeve Sobs, Gill Bates or Zark Muckerburg. I am thinking a bit more practically. Everybody wants to become super rich at a young age, but I don't. Yes I want to be wealthy enough to do what I love and fulfil some of my dreams (will soon write a blog about them too!), but I don't have any interest in becoming a billionaire or building a unicorn.
I am more interested in Indie Hacking. Hacking is building something that solves a problem, usually in tech. And Indie is Independent. There are many Indie hackers these days who have built SaaS startups and other kinds of small online businesses that generate enough revenue for them to keep working independently. That's what I aim for right now.
I have a great dream to build an organization or company that lives for decades if not centuries, and has a positive generational impact. Scaling will be done with time, but I want to build its image around trust, authenticity, innovation, free & independent thinking, creativity, and ethical practices. It should be different from other companies out there. It should work differently than others and build things nobody would have thought. Yup, that sounds very vague, and you might wonder what that business idea basically encompasses so many things. Well it's not just a single business idea, it's an idea for an organization that will build innovative things, but I'll start with my own field of Software and build something creative in it, or wait, I'm already doing so!
Huh, anyway, a long post as always, but I just wanted to share my thoughts and emotions about this new achievement. I hope you enjoyed reading it.
Take Care, HK