Develpreneur: Become a Better Developer and Entrepreneur

The best possible approach to passive income is by creating products. Even a single product can provide a substantial profit. Of course, there is a cost involved in researching and creating that product, but the pay-off can be limitless. The time and effort spent can be completely worthwhile. On the other hand, it can all be a complete waste. From Creating Products to Passive Income There are all sorts of products out there. Some require a considerable amount of time to keep the pipeline full, while others require little. Digital products like software applications are some of the best ones in the passive income space. It takes time and know-how to get started but reproducing the product for each customer takes almost no time or effort. You can even move from a small income stream up to a life-changing amount of revenue. Automation is Key No matter what product you create, automation is critical. You will not be able to move into the passive income space without outsourcing or automation. That is something to consider as ideas come into your head. There will often be some lovely product concepts that are not passive in nature. Sales and marketing alone can often be a full-time job for one person or even large teams. Keep automation in mind as you determine the processes required to build your product. It may help you craft processes and choose partners that make the passive income a reality. Avoid painting yourself in the corner of "required time" where possible. Trial and Error The good news is that any repeatable solution comes from trial and error. You can start down the path of brute force and manual labor to get it out the door. Then, once you have sold it to customers, you can always refine and improve those processes. Take advantage of the room for improvement by outsourcing and automating until the revenue comes to you without any effort on your part.

Value-added reselling is roughly a form of passive income. However, it is still a good enough approach for us to look at it as an option. This approach can lead us quickly to a product for a side hustle and maybe even the automation required to limit our required hours each week. We will not always find this to be a passive approach to income. Nevertheless, it can be done with proper outsourcing. Customization vs. Value-Added Reselling There are several ways to add value to a product. When one thinks of value-added reselling, often the addition is in the form of services, packaging, or delivery. However, you can also extend a product or provide customization or configuration that is not available OOTB. This process can then be outsourced and provide a revenue stream that is mostly passive. Build On Success The best thing about this approach is starting from a known quantity. You are building on the sales and marketing of others. They created the product and built some level of a customer base. The number they currently have will give you an idea of what to expect. Of course, you are making changes. Nevertheless, the bottom end of your sales should be at least where the raw products are. This approach gives you a baseline of expectations and a short path to getting a product out the door (with less risk). New From Old There are many ways to go from the concept of value-added reselling. That includes the ability to combine products in a way that creates a new one. For example, you could combine a USB drive and a flashlight. This example is hardly ground-breaking, but it could be a way to generate income. You could even box up products and sell it as a subscription. These are very popular and also have become a sort of cottage industry. Check out CrateJoy for some good examples and a platform for launching your own.

Passive income is a hot topic in certain quarters. Likewise, we have mentioned and even discussed this approach to revenue over the years. This season will focus on passive income approaches and side hustle families of work that are in the "work now, earn later" vein. While some of the topics this season will have the potential for life-changing income, many will not, and some will be very small. The key concept to remember is that any additional income is the icing on the cake. Some additional funds are better than none. Money Making Money One of the areas we will dig into for several episodes is the idea of your money working for you. This approach is a classic example of a snowball result. You can start small and re-invest the passive income so that there is steady growth of the base that is generating revenue. As time goes by, this can become a substantial revenue stream. Patience is essential for these approaches and often some knowledge about how the instrument works (e.g., real estate, stocks, collectibles). Negative Income, Passive Debt While we will not talk about it specifically, one of the best ways to improve your financial situation is debt management. If your money is costing you. For example, loans and other debt, then you may find the fastest way to a better bottom line is attacking that debt. Low-interest debt can be leveraged for passive income that earns more than the debt costs. However, you want to make sure that the return on debt is worth it. Of course, high-interest loans and debt needs to be paid down ASAP. Catching Up We have covered this topic several times in the past. However, here are a few past articles and episodes that provide more background as we start into the new season. These articles should start your mind working on passive income approaches that may be the best fit for you. Side Hustle To Passive Income The Snowball Effect of Passive Income Building Skills and Passive Income Through New Products

Whether in audio form or the old-school paper version, books are an essential part of becoming a better developer. Better yet, they can help us enjoy life and lead to overall success. As we pause between seasons, it seems like a good time to go over a few book recommendations. These are reads that have had a significant impact on me. Thus, I share them in hopes that they similarly impact you. Reference vs. Good Read Book Recommendations A distinction I make in these recommendations is the difference between a reference and a good read. The formerly mentioned books are easy to pick up and read in a piecemeal fashion. They also are good to return to as the mood takes you. The "good read" books follow more of a story pattern and are generally more entertaining. A John Grisham novel would be a good read while most programming books are references. Re-Readability A key point to note for any of these books is the idea of re-reading them. I have found all of these books worth reading more than once. Some of them are even worth returning to on an annual basis. Of course, reading them that often may be difficult. However, the audiobook form of these can be perfect for refreshing your memory or boosting morale when needed. Links to the Books Recommended The Four Hour Work Week Crush It Rework Will It Fly? Quiet - The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking The Five Dysfunctions of a Team The Source Code of Happiness The New One-Minute Manager

As a podcaster, I am also a fan. I listen to numerous shows and have for many years. Therefore it makes sense to offer an episode of podcast recommendations. There is an enormous number of options available, but maybe this episode will help you find some good ones and sort through the noise. The Tip of The Iceberg The recommendations are by no means a complete list. The options available are as broad as the interests you and your friends and family may have. I recommend you browse through Apple Podcasts a time or two every year. You will be able to find some excellent shows to match your latest interests. In particular, you might find some shows that cover your most recent technical focus and new things on the horizon. How I Chose These Podcast Recommendations These shows are on my regular listening list. I use the Overcast app with speeds often set at 1.25 times standard rate. This setting allows me to consume a lot of content and more or less keep up with the latest episodes. I do listen to a few more shows than those listed. Thus, I have plenty of content each week to cover drive time and also have it run in the background when I work. Even so, I still have a backlog for long car trips, flights, and vacations. These have allowed me to reduce my amount of reading to keep up with life and world events. I hope you find them helpful in your pursuit of becoming a better developer. Links to the Shows Recommended Develpreneur - Building Better Developers Boag World Smart Passive Income Entrepreneur Magazine Podcasts Entrepreneurs On Fire The Feed Motley Fool Money Podcast Ted Talks Daily Tim Ferris Harvest Business Review Hardcore History No Agenda

In this stand-alone episode, we look at solvers block. This is what I call the situation where one can not seem to push through to a solution. It is not due to options that have not been tried. Instead, it feels like there are no further options to explore. Solvers Block Hits Us All We all have good days and bad ones. Sometimes everything falls into place, and we feel super productive. However, there are also days or even weeks where we feel like we are running in quicksand. Each day starts with the same problem and ends without a solution. This is not a situation that only novice developers face. Even the most senior and experienced of us can hit a wall. A Mental Reset The old recommendation of stepping away is one of the best in these situations. When you feel yourself running over the same options, it is time for a change. You can physically step away from the problem or even do so mentally. Sometimes it is ok to solve a different problem, but cleaning your mental state is better. The physical options are best when you do something that gets you away from the problem mentally as well. Thus, mindless tasks like sweeping a floor, going for a walk where you are counting your steps or anything that keeps you from mentally returning to the problem. This includes taking a nap. A little sleep may allow your mind to roam free and consider new options. Even better, try a little meditation. The goal is not to focus on something; instead, let your mind drift. New Horizons The bottom line goal of removing solvers block is to generate new things to try out. Ideally, we eliminate potential solutions and eventually get to the desired one. We may feel a long way from the solution. However, as long as we are walking through those potential approaches, we are moving in the right direction. That is all we need to do to avoid this situation. We need to generate new and different approaches to the problem.

We have marched through 31 examples during this antipattern season. Therefore, we have enough of them to step back and look at themes, bad habits, and commonalities. While it is helpful to know about the individual patterns, it is better to see the big picture approaches we should avoid. Let's get to beating some dead horses. Communication Is Key We can do everything right and still end up down a dark hole if we fail to communicate. This recommendation involves vertical communication among staff and management as well as horizontal across roles. We also want to be sure that we have made context and our "why" clear as part of the communication. Provide a good map and give it to the team. If you fail to create a good map or fail to give it to the team then the destination they arrive at may be surprising. Embrace Change The modern business world moves fast and changes often. IT is at the forefront of this controlled chaos. Thus, you need to plan for change and be ready to adjust as often as needed. That requires our plans to be flexible, but also our tools and processes. The perfect tool for our current project may be practically useless for the next one. We want to learn from our experiences without getting tied tightly to them. Smell The Roses While smelling the roses does not help our productivity, stopping and considering our path does. We all want to get the solution out the door as fast as possible. However, the phrase about fools rushing in is very pertinent to our work. When we dive in without design and thinking through a solution we are far more likely to end up spinning our wheels. There are always dead ends and rabbit trails we can wander down. The time lost by these can be reduced with some time sent planning our approach to implementation even down to a detailed level. Therefore, things like pseudo-coding can be very valuable. Use this antipattern season to embrace new habits and become a better developer. If nothing else, take a look back at the anti-patterns we have covered.

Death by planning is an anti-pattern that makes us look like lemmings. We make a plan, and then we follow it mindlessly. This approach can work for some projects like building a house. However, software development does not work this way. There are always changes and unknowns that we encounter during the SDLC process. Thus, we want to be able to adjust to those instead of staying rigidly to the initial course. Defining the Death By Planning Anti-Pattern The Sourcemaking site provides the definition we will use for this episode. It is lengthy, but this anti-pattern calls for that. [Click Here to See The Page] "In many organizational cultures, detailed planning is an assumed activity for any project. This assumption is appropriate for manufacturing activities and many other types of projects, but not necessarily for many software projects, which contain many unknowns and chaotic activities by their very nature. Death by Planning occurs when detailed plans for software projects are taken too seriously." The primary factor in this anti-pattern is that last sentence. We gain value from creating detailed plans. However, they should be taken with a grain of salt. We often run into situations that are much like a battle where all the plans are thrown out after the first shot is fired. It is rarely that dire, but software development should no more be a slave to design than an army is to a battle plan. It Is Not Entirely Academic One of the common arguments from those that follow this anti-pattern is the design is the "right" way to proceed. The idea is that the time put into planning needs to be respected and veering from that course will invalidate the plan. This mindset often comes from an academic environment where the process is considered the critical thing to focus on. Once we get into the implementation phase of the SDLC, the solution is the key thing. The process is there to help us, not shackle us. If a Process Occurs And No One Notices... While it may be tempting to skip the design and related processes, that is not the solution to this anti-pattern. Death by planning is not a problem because of the planning part. It is a bad practice when you focus too much on the plan. This is not very different from most things in life. Things are best when done in moderation. Too much of anything throws off the balance. In this case, it is worse because of planning being a secondary part of the life cycle. The goal should always be building a solution. Every other best practice is there to help us achieve that primary goal. Therefore, rules (and even design decisions) are made to be broken.

The fire drill anti-pattern is one that falls on project management. While we can personally place ourselves in this sort of situation, the anti-pattern comes from planning. To be specific, it comes from poor planning. Think of the idea that we can cram for a test the night before and extend it to slamming home a project at the last minute. Defining the Fire Drill Anti-Pattern The definition for this anti-pattern has been selected from the anti-pattern site. IT provides a bleak picture of the pattern that is also a common root cause. [Click Here to See The Page] "Management waits until the last possible moment to allow developers to proceed with design and implementation; then they want results almost immediately." The above definition oversimplifies the ways this anti-pattern can appear. Yes, this can come from blocking design or implementation. However, it can arise from systemic blockers of any kind. Thus, specific requirements or constraints may not be resolved until the last minute, and then the deadline is unreasonable. We may even see this occur when a demo goes "too good." This happens when the hacked together demo we showed management is seen as almost done, which leads to unrealistic deadlines. Setting The Pace The best way to avoid this anti-pattern is to set milestones and push high-risk items to the front end of the plan. When we take this approach, we will have tasks defined that require a "push" to hit those deadlines. Instead of one big push, we reduce stress by setting up smaller pushes on a regular basis. That reduces the dead periods as well as lowering the peaks. When this is done to perfection, we get a straight and level line for the development effort. Just In Time Development The modern business world is full of just-in-time this or that. A fire drill can be avoided by doing this with your SDLC process. Part of the design and requirements steps should be a definition of prerequisites. These will help you lay out deadlines for tasks in a way that helps the team avoid bottlenecks. For example, the user experience design should be complete before the user interface is implemented. When it is not, the implementation will stall until that design is done and communicated. There are numerous situations like this during the creation of a solution. However, when they are identified early on, they provide a roadmap that can help create some smooth sailing.

The throw it over the wall anti-pattern is shared across a broad range of disciplines. However, it is particularly damaging to the software development process. We will focus on that discipline as we dig deeper into this communication-related issue. Defining the Throw It Over The Wall Anti-Pattern The Sourcemaking site provides an excellent setup for this anti-pattern. Thus, we will start there instead of our typical definition approach. [Click Here to See The Page] "Rarely is documentation entirely self-explanatory, yet understanding the vision and insight of the authors is an essential part of understanding the documentation. This is especially true of guideline documents, where there is an implicit assumption of independent decision making. This assumption also implies an in-depth knowledge of the authors' intent." Communication is where we see a breakdown with this anti-pattern. While assumptions can lead us into this situation, it often is just a lack of being thorough. Even worse, there usually is a culture that lacks respect for those on the other side of the wall. This environment not only suffers from the anti-pattern, it is also one that kills morale and teamwork. It All Comes Back To Why There are numerous issues that arise with this pattern. However, the most glaring (and damaging) is that it avoids communicating the "why" of a solution throughout the team. The point where documentation is thrown over the wall is the death of the "why." That leaves subsequent teams without the ability to do more than they are told. They will not be able to contribute to the solution outside of being a labor pool. In the highly competitive modern business world, any resource that is not being fully utilized can make the difference between success and failure. Trust your teams with context and clarification. This approach empowers them to make a difference above and beyond their work effort. A Downward Spiral While there are many other reasons to avoid this anti-pattern, productivity may be the easiest to measure. When content is thrown over the wall, it loses context. That means that downstream resources have to ask questions by throwing it back over the wall. This back and forth cycle can quickly add a lot of time to the project. That time can be the difference between "on time and on budget" or blowing past those milestones.