Why Entrepreneurship is the Most Profitable Option for Tech Professionals
If my dad can do it at 60, so can you.
Welcome to a new issue of Smarter Engineers. Each week, I send two essays that help you stay creative, healthy, and sane as a tech professional. If you want support in your tech and entrepreneurial journey, join our network of 90+ techies and entrepreneurs. You’ll instantly access our group chat, weekly live Q&As, and monthly workshops.
My dad is crushing it right now.
Him and his small team of three people have been closing software development deals with high-ticket clients ever since the year started.
But things weren’t always like this.
My dad has always been a proficient software engineer, with an outstanding capacity to keep up with new technological trends.
He’s always been ahead of the curve compared to people from his generation.
Yet, once his “best years” were gone, things started to stall.
Less projects. Less work. Less money.
Until very recently…
Here’s the thing.
Both you and my dad have always had the technical skills.
But you never developed an entrepreneurial mindset.
Because being an entrepreneur goes beyong being technically proficient:
It involves leadership and drive.
It involves finance management.
It involves creating and/or hiring teams.
It involves skills in sales, marketing, and idea generation.
It involves talking to potential customers, partners, and collaborators.
And many more skills that you will only realize you are lacking once you step off the default path of working a 9-to-5 to build your own thing.
But all these skills can be learned.
People are learning them and creating successful businesses around anything.
And I mean literally anything.
Meaning that once you start playing the entrepreneurial game, you start seeing opportunity everywhere.
Because your niche doesn’t matter.
Without going beyond Substack and the technology/science space, there are countless examples (and I will exclude the big names) of people creating a live they love supported by work they enjoy.
Some of my favorites:
- has amassed an audience of 90K+ readers online writing about Math and Machine Learning topics. And he built a top 100 Substack Publication in the category of Science.
- shares his takes on Education, Philosophy, and Artificial Intelligence and also offers consulting services on applied ML and sells books on Computer Science topics.
- teaches Python through the power of storytelling and offers a paid membership with over a 1000 enrolled students.
- shows you how to get into big tech as a data scientist and how to make a living as an entrepreneur by building your personal brand. After being laid off from Meta, she began her life as an entrepreneur with an information advantage.
- writes all things polymathic on his Substack publication (a bestseller), offers consulting services and sells his Sci-Fi books.
People love to advice you to niche down because there are “riches in niches“.
And that’s true to some extent.
But it doesn’t have to be your way of doing things.
You might (and you should) have multiple interests.
You can monetize some of those interests to help support a life you love.
Nothing wrong with that. Right?
But, for some reason, most people never do it.
Most people don’t even think about this.
And the ones who think about it, get stuck in the ideation phase.
What if I give this another twist? What if I start next week? What if I wait until I’m ready?
And while they ask themselves these questions, they underestimate the power of just getting started.
Yes, with that half-finished idea.
Yes, without knowing what you are doing.
Because the most effective way to achieve clarity is to start, collect feedback, and iterate.
It works for anything in life.
— Alberto
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As I like to tell people, "My niche is nicheless."