It’s been a while and I haven’t posted anything new on my blog. It’s time to get back to writing. I actually want to post more frequently than I do. The title is really on spot for my blogging, too. We will get back to that real soon. Moving off, I believe many of us in software development had different opportunities to do projects, activities, training, and events. A significant portion of us had good ideas but never had the chance to execute them. Perhaps, they didn’t want it as much so they didn’t create the chance to execute it. Or, even worse they didn’t execute it well. So, ended up in some sort of mediocre position for that very thing. I believe it takes a good amount of dedication to strive for success in any opportunity. In this post, I want to go through some of my personal missed opportunities.
I have started my blog in 2008. Back then, there wasn’t a gazillion of material we have now on every topic. Following some good blogs has been a good source of information and ideas. I obviously didn’t have as much as experience I do now. I guess it shouldn’t matter. I was learning new ideas every week. If I blogged about each idea I learned, I would have so many more posts. If I posted weekly, I would end up with 52 * 13 = 676 posts as oppose to ~100 posts. The other interesting aspect is that the more you write, the better you get at it. At first, the posts might not have been catchy but they might get better in time. I missed two opportunities. One, I might have become a recognized blogger in tech. Two, I could have improved my writing skills. The latter is very important for day-to-day jobs. The dedication was the key.
When I was in college, it wasn’t as easy to find internships or companies to find interns. There was a list of suggested companies to apply for internships. It was rather a manual process. Thus, we had an idea to establish a website to find interns for companies. Interns would create profiles and companies would find interns from the website. We implemented this idea, presented it to a couple of companies. We actually got some positive feedback. We even had a pretty cool domain name. We literally stopped there. We didn’t push the idea since we didn’t believe in it so much. Believing was the key.
We worked with a local businessman to create a platform where wholesales would take place. The platform didn’t get traction initially but then it got attention. It was solving a unique problem and potential transactions were huge. If we would somehow get a small percent of it, we would still make a great profit. And, people started using it; though, we needed investment. We presented the idea to some investors. They were very interested. Nevertheless, our boss at the time didn’t want to sell some portion of his shares. We tried to convince him but it didn’t work out. It stopped there. We stopped working on it. End of the story. We weren’t lucky. Luck was the key.
Missed opportunities have different causes. It’s really hard to foresee potential outcomes. More importantly, things have changed. Nowadays, even if I would have an idea, it takes so much effort to do so. I’ve many other responsibilities. Earlier it was much easier to start and execute. Now, I’ve to think about how to pay the mortgage, etc. It’s also comfortable to work for a bigger company. Nevertheless, I think smaller initiatives are still possible. Some opportunities don’t need so much effort like blogging. When it comes to big pushes, I still believe it’s doable but it requires sacrifices.